Hyle Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• The Game
• Play
• Comment
• Scoring Combinations

Components

• Square board divided into 7x7 cells (5x5 is possible as well)
• 49 counters: 7 each of 7 different colours (or 5x5 colours, when playing on a 5x5 field)
• Small bag

The Game

One player is Order, the other Chaos. Order is trying to make patterns vertically and horizontally. Chaos is trying to prevent this. A pattern is any sequence of counters that is identical if viewed from either direction (left to right/right to left or up to down/down to up). A pattern scores the number of counters in the pattern. All patterns within a pattern also score. For example: red-green-blue-green-red scores 5 and also 3 for green-blue-green; total: 8. Another example: red-green-red-green-red scores 5 plus 3x3 = 14. A further example: red-red-red-red scores 4 + 2x3 + 3x2 = 16. All possible patterns are listed below.

Play

Chaos puts the counters in the bag. He draws them out unseen one at a time and places them on any empty square. Each time Chaos places a counter, Order may slide any one counter on the board (including the one just placed) vertically or horizontally over any number of vacant squares (exactly like a rook in chess). Only one counter may occupy a square. When the board is full every vertical and horizontal line is scored. The players then reverse roles and the player with the highest score is the winner.

Comment

The variety of play is almost infinite so that each game is different. An average score is about 75; 100 is good, 50 is poor.

A good strategy for Order is to avoid holes into which Chaos can drop awkward colours. The ideal is to have no more than two vacant areas. Order achieves this by moving counters to the sides. As the game progresses, Order can calculate the odds of a particular colour coming out of the bag next.

Tournament rules, using a timing clock, have been perfected.

Scoring Combinations

Here, for ease of checking, are the 30 possible scoring combinations. Distinct letters stand for distinct colours.

Pattern	Score	Pattern	Score	Pattern	Score
AA	2	ABCCBA	12	AABBBAA	23
ABA	3	AABBAA	16	AABABAA	25
AAA	7	ABAABA	18	ABAAABA	25
ABBA	6	ABBBBA	22	ABBABBA	27
AAAA	16	AAAAAA	50	AAABAAA	29
ABCBA	8	ABCACBA	15	ABABABA	37
ABBBA	12	ABCDCBA	15	ABBBBBA	37
AABAA	12	ABBCBBA	19	AAAAAAA	77
ABABA	14	ABCCCBA	19
AAAAA	30	AABCBAA	19
		ABACABA	21
		ABCBCBA	21