NECNON (2018)

NECNON is not exactly a single game, but more accurately a constellation of games, played according to a pair of complementary protocols. If that sounds complicated, the truth is actually quite otherwise.

The twin protocols, NEC and NON, are acronyms for 'Not Even Close' and 'No Odd Neighbours'. The difference between them, as their names quirkily suggest, is that in NEC you may never lay a stone next to an even number of enemy stones, whereas in NON it’s odd numbers that are off limits. Either way, a placement next to no enemy stones at all is fine.

NECNON is a very close cousin to the classic game of Go. Contributing stones alternately to a grid whose cells may be either hexagonal or square, the players (Black and Green) gradually fill up the playing space. The objective is to deprive enemy groups (including enemy singletons) of ‘air’ – i.e., of the vacant adjacent cells which in Go would be called ‘liberties’. At the end, any groups thus ‘smothered’ score points for the smotherer at the rate of one per stone, and the player with more points wins. If scores are level the game is drawn.

Note: NECNON is a pure placement game; no capturing occurs during play.

A great deal of variety stems from a series of decisions made before play begins: whether to choose hexagons or squares; what size of board to use; and whether to go for NEC, or NON, or NEC versus NON. In all cases, Black (who starts) lays one stone on the initially empty board, and thereafter both players lay two at every turn. Passing is only permitted if unavoidable, and the game ends when both players pass consecutively, or when the board is full. That’s it.

Play NECNON online against a human or a virtual opponent at Stephen Tavener’s wonderful Ai Ai site: http://mrraow.com/.index.php/aiai-home/aiai/ .

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