Yonder Games

Amazons

In the game of amazons each player has four queens. On a given turn, a queen moves like a chess queen, then shoots a flaming arrow, which also moves like a chess queen. Both the queens and the arrows can only move through unimpeded squares. When an arrow lands on a square, that square is burnt out and is no longer traversable by either queens or arrows. The first player who cannot move loses.

Amazons was created by Argentine Walter Zamkauskas in 1988.

Black Path

In the Black Path game, players take turns picking which of three types of tiles is to be placed next on a rectangular grid. The tile is placed at the location indicated by the arrow. Each tile extends a path. The player who causes the path to run off the edge of the grid loses.

Larry Black invented the Black Path game in 1960.

Bughouse

Bughouse is a chess variant played on two chessboards by four players in teams of two. Normal chess rules apply, except that captured pieces on one board are passed on to the teammate on the other board, who then has the option of putting these pieces on their board. In this version, there is no check. The game ends when either a king is captured from either board or a player’s clock runs out.

Constraints on dropping pieces: - Pieces may only be dropped on empty squares (no drop captures) - Pawns cannot be dropped on the first or eighth rank.

Chess

Chess is the classical western abstract strategy game involving no hidden information and no elements of chance. It has a rich history spanning nearly 1500 years to its predecessor in India. Computer chess has played a significant role in the historical development of the field of artificial intelligence, where it has been referred to as the “Drosophila of AI”.

Chinese Checkers

The goal of Chinese Checkers is to move all of your marbles to the opposite ray of the star. Players take turns moving one marble at a time to either an adjacent position or jumping over an adjacent marble of any color. Multiple jumps are allowed. To perform multiple jumps, just tap the marble’s final position, not the intermediate positions. To prevent blocking an opponent from their goal, a player is allowed to win if all of their goal positions are filled and none of their marbles are in their home ray.

Chomp

In the game of Chomp, players take turns choosing a square from a chocolate bar. In choosing a square, the player takes a bite, consuming the chosen square and all squares below or to the right of it. The upper left square is poisonous. The player forced to eat the poisonous square loses.

The game of Chomp was created by David Gale.

Crazyhouse

Crazyhouse is a chess variant played in which captured pieces change ownership. Normal chess rules apply, except that captured pieces change color and go to the capturer, who in subsequent moves has the option of putting these pieces on their board. In this version, there is no check.

The game ends when either a king is captured or a player’s clock runs out. Pieces may only be dropped on empty squares (no drop captures) and pawns cannot be dropped on the first or eighth rank. Crazyhouse can also be described as two-player Bughouse.

Dots and Boxes

Players take turns connecting two adjacent dots vertically or horizontally. When placing the line segment forms a unit box, the player acquires the box and must take a another turn. Play continues until all cells are boxes. The player with the most boxes wins.

Drop Four

Drop Four is a two-player game in which players take turns dropping pieces in columns. The winner is first to get four in a row horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

Fischer Random Chess

Fischer Random Chess was invented by the chess master Bobby Fischer. It is like regular chess except that the back row is in randomized order. The randomized order is subject to a few constraints to maintain the core chess dynamics:

• the same piece type occupies a file for white and black
• each player has on bishop on each color
• the king has one rook on each side There are 960 positions that fit these constraints, so the game is also known as “Chess 960”.

The last constraint enables a generalized castling to be preserved, in which the final positions of the rook and king after a queen side or king side castle are the same positions as they would be in regular chess. The castling conditions are:

• Neither the king nor the involved rook may move prior to castling.
• The king may not move through check.
• The squares between the castling pieces must be unoccupied by pieces that are not involved in the castling move.

Labyrinth

Labyrinth is a turn-taking strategy game in which each player seeks to reach the opposite side of the board from their initial positions. On each turn, a player may move their pawn one position horizontally or vertically or may place one of a limited number of walls. Wall placements are subject to the constraint that no player may be completely blocked from their goal. A single pawn may be jumped over if it is immediately adjacent to the moving pawn. If a wall is immediately behind a pawn being jumped, the jump becomes diagonal in either direction, subject to wall constraints.

On your turn, the hightlighted squares show your pawn’s legal movements. To place a wall, tap a horizontal or vertical wall icon, then tap the vertex for the location of the center of the wall.

Lexi Lane

Lexi Lane is an original word game for Yonder Game Night. The objective is to build a path that spans opposite edges of the board (either horizontally or vertically). A valid path is comprised of squares of a player’s color that are connected via edges or diagonals of the same color. Players alternate turns placing consective tiles vertically or horizontally. Existing tiles can either be skipped or replaced, but you must place at least one tile on a blank spot and you must not cover all the letters of an existing word.

When a new word is formed, the tiles comprising that word become colored for the player that made the word. First player to build a path that spans the board wins.

Rummy

Rummy is a family of card games in which players form melds consisting of sets (three or four cards of the same rank) or runs (sequences of three or more cards of consecutive rank in the same suit). There is a face-down stock pile and a face-up discard pile. In this version, for 2-6 players, players take turn doing the following:

• Player draws the top card from either stock or discard.
• Player forms any number of melds, which appear face-up.
• Player lays off any number of cards onto existing melds.
• Player discards one card.
• If a card was drawn from discard, it cannot be discarded on the same turn.

Winner of a round is the first player to run out of cards, at which point the winner of the round collects points for each card in other players’ hands (face cards count as 10). The deck is shuffled, hands are redealt and play continues. A player goes rummy if they get rid of all their cards at once, without having played a meld or laid off cards previously in the round. A player that goes rummy collects double points for the round.

The winner of the game is the first to reach the designated number of points.

Tafl

Tafl, also known as hnefatafl or viking chess, is a two-player abstract strategy game. The roles are “attackers” (the dark colored pieces) and “vikings” (the light colored pieces). The goal of the attackers is to capture the king. The goal of the vikings is to get the king to a corner “refuge” square. All pieces move like a chess rook, vertically or horizontally. Regular pieces are captured by flanking the piece on opposite sides. The king is captured by attackers surrounding the king on all four non-diagonal sides. Refuge squares can also be used for flanking.

Entering into a flanking situation does not cause a capture, the opponent must move away and back to perform the capture. Finally, a wall capture of multiple pieces can be performed by moving to an edge square in such a way as to surround two or three opponent edge pieces. Entering a third repeated state is a loss for the player entering the state. If a player has no legal moves, it is a win for the opponent.

Word Hunt

Form words by using letters that are connected vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. The letters need not form a straight line, but a letter in a given location can only be used once per word. Words must have at least three characters. Hunt for as many as you can find. Trace out the path of the word or press the letters in sequence and then press OK. Each word earns one point per letter. The player with the most points wins.

When some time has passed with no players making words, a 5 second countdown starts. The game ends when the countdown completes.

Word Thief

In Word Thief, players race to form words from a pool of letters. The first player to submit a word that is at least the minimum letters long obtains the word in their “word bank”.

When forming words, one can “steal” words from anyone’s word bank, subject to the following rules: - all letters of the stolen word must be used - new word is longer than the stolen word - new word does not contain stolen word

Points are awarded for each letter in a player’s word bank. The first player to collect the target number of points wins.