Game of Gerrymander

Summer is a time for lighter activities. Instead of delving deeper into the secrets of game design, in today’s text, I want to share with you a simple game that my son Toza and I designed a while ago. I can’t believe that an entire year has passed since we made this. Last year we took a long train journey zigzagging through Europe. Train travel is an excellent way to see the continent. However, it leaves you plenty of time to kill. I think that this game got incepted somewhere in Germany while we were on our way from Prague to Berlin. We originally played it using a notebook and a pencil, but the full version should be played with a proper printed board and square tiles.

To play the game of Gerrymander you will need:

1. 8 x 8 board,
2. two sets of 64 tiles, one red, and one blue,
3. A 6-sided die.

So how is this game played?

This is a game for two players. It is played on a 8 x 8 board. At the start of the game, the board is empty. Each player has his own set of tiles, either blue or red. The objective of the game is to conquer as much territory as possible. The size of the territory is measured by grid cells.

Players take turns in throwing a six-sided die. At each turn, the player can conquer as many grid cells as the number he rolled. However, there is a catch. The number of conquered cells needs to be EXACTLY the rolled number, no more no less. Furthermore, the conquered cells need to be adjacent! Only free cells can be conquered. Cells already occupied by either of the players must be avoided.

If there are not enough adjacent free cells to accommodate the rolled number the player can’t conquer anything and the turn passes to the opponent.

The game ends when there are no more free cells left on the board or if a clear winner is obvious. The player that conquered the biggest connected area on the board wins. Only connected areas count. Disconnected areas do not count. For example, if the red player has managed to conquer 30 connected cells, but the blue player conquered 34 cells separated into areas of 20 and 14 cells each, the red player wins as he has the larger connected area under his control.

The winning strategy is to try to strike a balance between expansion and blocking of the opponent’s expansion, i.e. to select the cells you want to conquer in a way so that you block the opponent’s possible moves.

If you care to try it out, you can download the files with the board and the tilesets from this link. I hope that you would enjoy the game.