Spelde (2024)

Introduction:Spelde (from Middle English: spelde, meaning "to split") is a drawless game for two players: Black and White. It is played on the hexes (cells) of an initially empty hexagonal board. The recommended size is 6 cells per side, but boards of 5 or 7 are also valid. Each player has access to a sufficient supply of stones of their own color. Definitions: A group is a maximal set of stones of the same color connected to each other. A single stone is also a group. To flip is to replace enemy stones with friendly stones. To split is to separate a group of enemy stones into two or more independent groups by turning over one or more subsets of stones from the original group. Turns:On your turn, place a stone of your color on an empty cell. If it touches enemy groups, you must split all of them; otherwise, the placement is illegal. To split, flip consecutive stones of each group, starting next to your placed stone and ending at the one that separates it into two or more parts. End of the game:The game ends when a player cannot make any placement; in this case, the opponent is the winner. To balance the game, before starting, the first player places a black stone in an empty cell, and the second player chooses a side. This balancing method is called the pie rule. —description from the designer