Synapse-Ice
Synapse-Ice Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Requirements
- 2 players
- An Icehouse stash for each player
- A 5x6 rectangular grid. (A section of chess-board works well.)
Synopsis
The board starts out empty. The first player chooses any pieces from his stash and places it lying down on any square on the board, pointing to an empty space. A 3-point piece points to the square three steps away, a 2-pointer to the space two steps away, and a 1-pointer to the adjacent space. On each subsequent move, the next player must then place a piece in the square pointed to. This piece must also point to an empty space. The first player who is unable to make a move loses.
Sample Play
The original sample play is a series of board diagrams showing piece placements. The diagrams are not reproduced here; the narration is given as printed.
In this example, Red has just played a 1-point piece pointing up to the space with the Star. Green has to play in the Star'ed space, and has only two options, a 1-point piece pointing left, or a 2-point piece pointing right. He could have played a 3-point piece to the right as well, but he's used all of his 3-pointer already. If he points left, red could play a 2-point piece facing down and win immediately. So he points right.
Red now has 4 options, 3-left, 2-up, 1-right, and 1-down. She selects 1-right.
Green can choose 2-up, 1-up, or 1-down. He goes for 1 up, a mistake. (The next few moves are forced, so we'll skip ahead on the diagrams.) Red has no choice, she must play 2-down. And that leaves Green with no choice, gotta play 1-left. Red then plays 3-up (her only move) leaving us with this situation:
Green has no legal move, and so Red wins! If he had played it right in the third diagram, Green could have forced a win. Of course, if Red had played it right in the second diagram, she could have forced a win first. I'll leave figuring out the right moves in each of these situations as an exercise for the reader.