Dragon Eyes
Designed by Vadrya Pokshtya
Introduction: Players play against the unknown to manipulate fate and their opponent. Ultimately, only one player will dominate the Dragon Eyes and claim victory.
Equipment: 84 pieces (42 light and 42 dark), Hexagonal board (a regular hexagon of 91 hexes) with the corners and center spaces marked to distinguish them as special Dragon Eyes spaces.
Pieces that begin the turn in a Dragon Eye or that land in a Dragon Eye during a capture chain become Enchanted Pieces. Pieces stop being Enchanted only at the end of the turn unless they are in a Dragon Eye.
Number of Players: 2
Setup: The backs of the pieces must be indistinguishable from each other so that they cannot be identified when they are face down.
Pieces start face down: Pieces are shuffled and randomly distributed face down across the 84 hexes of the board. The corners and central spaces remain free:
Gameplay:
The first player will control the light-colored pieces.
The game is played out over two phases.
The first phase occurs while there are still face-down pieces. As soon as the last piece is turned face-up the second phase begins.
During both phases players must spend their turn to perform a single capture or capture chain, if available. They may only perform the phase-specific action when no captures are available.
Captures:
A normal piece can capture an adjacent enemy piece by jumping over it and landing in an empty space directly behind it.
An Enchanted Piece can capture an enemy piece that is further away by flying over it. It may do this if the enemy is on the same line as the Enchanted Piece, there are no pieces between the enemy piece and the Enchanted Piece, the Enchanted Piece has an empty landing space somewhere behind the enemy piece, and there are no pieces between the enemy piece and the landing space.
Enchanted Pieces may not pass through nor land on Dragon Eyes during a capture.
In both cases, the captured piece is removed immediately.
Afterwards, if the capturing piece has another capture available from its new location, it must continue by capturing again, potentially many times over. Enchanted Pieces must choose landing spaces that allow them to continue capturing, if possible.
If, at the beginning or at any point in the capture chain, there is a choice between two or more captures then the player may freely choose between them.
Phase Specific Actions:
During phase 1, if a player does not have a capture, then they spend their turn by choosing one of the face down pieces and flipping it over to reveal the owner of the piece.
During phase 2, if a player does not have a capture, then they spend their turn by choosing one of their pieces and moving it to an adjacent empty space.
Game End:
The game ends in one of two ways.
First, the game can end in a loss for a player if they lose their last piece or cannot make a legal move.
Second, during the second phase of the game, if the active player begins their turn with more Enchanted Pieces on Dragon Eyes than their opponent and has no mandatory captures to make, they win. If the active player begins their turn with the same number of Enchanted Pieces on Dragon Eyes than their opponent and has no mandatory captures to make, the game is declared a draw.
A variant rule can be played where the active player must choose to declare the game a draw for it to take effect.
© Copyright Vadrya Pokshtya
