A Game for Four

Jun 23, 01:09 AM

I was recently reading Bram Cohen’s (of bittorrent fame) blog about three person games and was inspired to come up with my own four person game.

I remember when I was little on vacation in Cape May with my parents reading a magazine article about a string quartet. In it the second violinist was talking about the natural difficulty in keeping four instruments balanced.

There is an interesting 3 person card game in Germany called Skat that was taught to me by some Germans once. It is played with a smaller deck (only 7, 8, 9, 10 and face cards) and has similar play to Hearts or Spades where players have to win tricks. The rules are quite complex but It does have an interesting part in the beginning of each round where players bid to decide if they want to play against the other two.

This has an interesting effect of balancing strong players against 2 weaker players. Here is a little game I came up with to try to recreate that player vs. group dynamic. It’s really just intended as a thought experiment for me although I welcome any ideas or feedback. Click through for the rules…

The setup:

• play is on a 4×4 chess board
• each player is assigned to a differnt home corner (the board is arranged so that players sit at the corners of the board)
• play continues clockwise from a randomly assigned player
• 4 white and 4 black pawns are arranged in an X with black pawns on the black squares and white on the white.

The play rules:

• players take turns moving any piece on the board one square either adjacent or diagonally.
• only one piece can occupy a square
• players try to occupy 3 corners: in front of them, across from them and to their right.
• a win occurs when a player makes a move that causes their 3 corner squares to be all the same color

Possible modifications that change game play:

• win by matching your corner with any 2 other corners instead of assigned squares. I think this might cause the alliances to switch more often, however I think that having the person who controls a corner you dont need to win playing immediately after you would allow them to muck with your plans more.
• opposite colored adjacent pieces can swap with each other. This causes more sudden shifts in board layout which makes it slightly harder for human players.
• players are allowed 2 moves per turn. Faster game play might be needed to prevent stalemates.

It will require some play testing but I like the idea making/breaking alliances to accieve your goals. You have an ally (across from you) a player whom you need (to your right) and one that needs you (to the left). There are enough pieces that the board is pretty clogged up but probably a shortage of the color you are trying to build on.

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