playstrategy.org

Draughts Variants

#2

LOTS of variants on a hexagonal grid not in your database. I'd suggest to take a look at Christian Freeling's website, Mindsports.

mindsports.nl/

Also a fair amount of variants on a square grid that you haven't covered, such as Bushka, Stapeldammen, Emergo, etc.

Here are some of the variants I'd include from the site =

- HexDame = Literal translation of International Draughts on a hexagonal grid

- Pommel = Hexagonal grid variant where you can also leap over a line of friendly pieces (of course without capturing), and an additional way to capture by leaping over a line of opposing pieces, stopping at the first vacant space behind the line.

- HarzDame = A square variant by Benedikt Rosenau in 2010. Both sides are set up so that they occupy opposing corners of the board, and the promotion region is really different.

- Emergo = An admittedly very divergent variant of draughts, if it even is. Players place pieces anywhere on the board, and captures are similar to in Bashni. There is no promotion, and pieces may move in any of the four diagonal directions, no flying.

Also, I do not think Alquerque (NOT Albuquerque, this is the correct name), Dameo, Bashni, Frysk!, or Croda are divergent at all. They may have unique mechanics, however those games are ultimately derived from existing variants (in Alquerque's case, it IS the game many, if not all Draughts variants are derived from).

> Frysk! is just Frisian with only one row of pieces (instead of 4 as in Frisian)
> Croda is just Turkish with the men being able to move diagonally forwards instead of to the sides. Also, there are 3 rows of 8 pieces.
> Dameo meanwhile is just Croda with a reduced amount of pieces and a mechanic known as "Linear Movement", where you can move an entire line of men forwards, instead of just one man. Kings now can also move diagonally.
> Bashni is just Russian with the exception of captured pieces being moved below the capturing piece instead of being removed from the game.

#3

Thanks for the feedback.

You're right that Frysk is not too divergent, I probably meant to put it in the "too modern" section which HexDame, Pommel, HarzDame, and Emergo definitely belong to, but I ended up adding Frysk to my list.

You are also right that Dameo and Croda are not too divergent but I put them in the "too modern" section.

I think that Bashni is not too divergent, but rather it is like anti-draughts or breakthrough where it's just incorporating a strange rule you can add to any variant of draughts (something like Bashni exists in the Netherlands too).

The reason I am strict on how I define draughts is because I don't want my list to be unreasonably long - anyone can create their own variant and I would rather spend my efforts on ones which are actually evolved in various regions to preserve humanity's cultural heritage. What is draughts to you? For me, it's a game where two teams start with men on a rectangular grid, you jump over opponents' pieces to capture them with the goal of ultimately destroying their team, and you can turn your man into a king by reaching the other side.

Alquerque may be where draughts came from but I think it's too different from draughts today. I would like to make a document like this for Alquerque variants like Kharbaga and Zamma.

#4

Ah, I see. While I don't think the stacking mechanic is not enough to warrant the game being not simply considered a variant, I can understand why some people might think that way (also the stacking variant from Netherlands is called Stapeldammen).

As to what Draughts means to me, to align more with what most people would think as Draughts, it'd be simply any game where =

- The main goal involves one of the players being fully exhausted of pieces (a.k.a, their pieces are all captured). This would eliminate games such as :

> Games like Philosophy Shogi Checkers, Italian Damone, Checkers 2000, etc. since these do not necessarily involve the pieces being exhausted

> Games like Konane, since in practice the game almost never ends by one side being out of pieces

> Games like Halma (all variants), Ugolki and Breakthrough Draughts, since they are race games.

- Leaping pieces is the only form of capture in the game. This excludes :

> Fanorona and Bushka, since the form of capture present is contact capture. I admit I made a mistake in including Bushka in my previous post.

> Halma, Ugolki etc., since there are no forms of capture.

- There is (usually) only up two types of pieces, the men and the king. This excludes games such as Philosophy Shogi Checkers, Checkers 2000, Dablot Prejjesne, Italian Damone, Cheskers, Checkers 2000, etc.

- The game is symmetrical (meaning both sides have the same resources). This would exclude Indian war games, which are mostly assymetrical.

- The grid is identical throughout the board. This means that if we had an infinite grid of the board, every space would have the same movement options. This excludes games like Alquerque, Zamma, etc., and also games like Tobit.

That's basically my understanding on what Draughts means, though some would argue it's still too wide of a definition.

#5

I think you could consider Frysk! as just Frisian with a different starting position. Therefore you wouldn't need to explicitly include it.
Breakthrough (as in playstrategy.org/variant/breakthroughtroyka) feels somewhat related but it doesn't have the usual leaping pieces as capture as seen in most common draughts variants.

#6

Antidraughts: If you lose, then you win — The victory conditions are opposite to standard draughts.

#7

To reply to all of the comments.

Firstly, if Frysk shouldn't be considered a different game because it has less pieces, then I think many of the varieties should not be included for only adjusting board shape, starting color, and the colors of the corners. For now I'll keep Frysk though I called it "Small Frisian (Frysk)"

Next, I think that Antidraughts, Stacking draughts, Double Move, etc. are not simply normal variations in that they break some fundamental rules of draughts.

I generally agree with Tobias' definition with one caveat. I don't think the goal is necessarily to capture all the opponent's pieces: I think it can also be to make it so the opponent cannot move (though this isn't the case in Slovak checkers). In Ghanaian checkers, you win if the opponent only has one piece left, yet I still view it is a regular checkers variant.

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