Chercles (1970)

The game of Circular checkers (hence the name). The board is laid out as a series of intersecting circular paths. The playing pieces are silly-looking ogres called "Cherks". Players alternate moving a Cherk one space forward along the one-way arrows printed on the paths. Pieces are captured in direct chess-fashion rather than by checker-style jumping. If a capture is possible, it must be performed, sometimes resulting in two or more captures in one turn if capturing one piece places the Cherk next to another piece. There is no last-rank promotion. The player who succeeds in capturing all of his opponents Cherks wins. Note: Parker Brothers published a companion game called All The King's Men. The Cherk Pieces of this game were also used in Smess as Pawn-variants called Ninnies.