Ni-Ju
Ni-Ju Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Material
- 20 white tiles
- 20 black tiles
- 40 red discs
Setup
The table starts empty. Each player has an allocated colour (white or black) and takes all 20 tiles of her colour.
How to Win
A player wins if, at the end of her turn, at least one of her tiles is surrounded by at least four tiles of her colour in the fashion depicted by that tile.
Example: a tile (indicated in green) and its victory condition.
How to Play
Placing phase
Starting with White, players alternate turns placing any one of the tiles from their pool on the table so that they align with an imaginary grid of squares and orthogonally adjacent to at least one previously placed tile (with the exception of the first move, of course).
(Diagram: a legal and an illegal placement.)
Player aid (must be agreed before the game starts): If, after the placement, any of the tiles on the table will be unable to trigger the victory condition later on in the game (unless moved), place a red disc on it. This adds clarity to the game state.
Example: the black tile prevents the white tile from triggering the victory condition for the rest of the game (unless moved).
Movement phase
If the players' pools get exhausted and the victory condition has not been reached, players continue playing by taking turns moving an already played tile of their colour to a different spot (according to the placement rule) until one of them wins the game or both agree to a draw. The tile to be moved must have at least one 'free' side (a side with no adjacent tile). It is not permitted to isolate tile subsets. Remove its red disc if any.
Example of Game End
- Black makes a powerful placement (tile indicated in green) and threatens to place a tile on the spot indicated by the green dot (thus triggering the victory condition and winning the game).
- White blocks Black's threat by placing a tile on that green spot, but then Black places a tile next to it triggering the victory condition of the tile indicated with the green asterisk and winning the game.
Variant
Only the placement phase is played. Once finished, each player scores one point for every winning tile of her colour.
Puzzle
Arrange all the white tiles so that the number of winning ones is maximum.