Blooms (2018)

Winner of the 2018 Best Combinatorial Game award, Blooms is a 2-player game where players capture each other’s pieces by surrounding them. It was inspired by the classical game Go and a painting in an Oregon coffee shop. Rules Bloom : a bloom is an entire group of connected stones on the board of the same color. A single stone (unconnected to others of the same color) is also a bloom. Liberty : a liberty is an empty space adjacent to a stone. Fenced : a bloom is fenced when there are no liberties adjacent to any of the bloom’s stones. Gameplay Each player owns 2 colors of stones. To start, Player 1 places 1 stone of either of their colors on any empty space. From then on, starting with Player 2, the players take turns. Each turn consists of 2 phases: FIRST, either 1 or 2 stones are played onto any empty spaces. If 2 stones are placed, they must be of different colors. THEN the capture phase takes place: the player must remove all fenced blooms of the opponent (ONLY the opponent's ones!) The first player to have captured X stones wins. For hexagonal boards with sides of 5, 6, 8, and 10 cells, the recommended values of X are 20, 25, 40, and 50, respectively." THE RULES AND THE BASIC MECHANICS ARE QUICK AND SIMPLE TO LEARN. The strategy can be as deep as in Go or in Chess, and be very intriguing even if a bit criptic at the beginning. As in Go the key for winning is to control as much territory as possible while preventing the opponent to do the same. This will eventually result in capturing more stones than the opponent. To optimize their strategy often one needs to sacrifice some of their own stones in order to weaken the structure of the opponent's blooms and to gain positional advantage. It's common for players to get 10 or more points down in games played to 25, and still win. This is important because new players often don't see the value of sacrifice. Another important point to master are the conditions for blooms to live (being impossible to capture), which are similar to those found in Go, the main difference being that, in most cases, 3 eyes (liberties fully surrounded by stone from the same group) are required instead of only 2. Different board sizes allow for different lengths of the game. Expect on average 15, 25, 45 moves each for games on 5-,6- and 8-sided boards respectively. Play online at Board Game Arena