Kiki's Games Blog

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Chinese Checkers

Chinese Checkers is a very simplistic game of strategy.
The main board is laid out as a six-pointed star, with 10 holes in each corner, and holes laid out in the hexagonal middle area.
The aim of the game is to move all of one's own pieces (marbles or pegs) from one corner of the star to the opposite corner, while competing players attempt to do the same. Only one piece may be moved per turn, and only moved one hole at a time; however, playing the "hop across" rule variation, movement is helped by allowing jumping over adjacent pieces (in a straight line) to another empty space. Additionally, more than one jump per turn is permitted. This created strategy as good placement of pieces was vital to further either one's own piece, or hinder an opposing player's.
However, Chinese Checkers suffers from a critical flaw -- the dominating strategy is to NOT move one's own piece from the starting corner, and move pieces into the corners of all other players. Thus, since no player can completely capture any corner, play is brought to a stalemate.
As it is, Chinese Checkers has good ideas as regards strategy, and can even bring in some good teamplay between non-opposing players. However, with such a critical flaw in its core rules, it stands as a game which could have used more time developing its rules.

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