Tékumel Board Games: Dashigáikh

 (Tak is a tile-playing board game designed by James Ernest and Patrick Rothfuss.)

The game of Dashigáikh is a Yán Koryáni game, though it originates in northwestern Tsoliyanú. It was popular among work gangs of Sakbé roads and spread out from there, but became especially popular in Yán Kór. For many years it was disdained by or unknown to high society in the other four empires, but it has grown in popularity among the higher clans. It is most popular in Ghatón, where it is played almost to the exclusion of any other kind of game, and the average level of skill at the game is highest there.

The game is played on a 5x5 grid with pieces of two colors. Each player has 21 flat pieces of their color, and one special (usually pyramidal) piece called the "overseer". The flat pieces are thick and have at least one edge flattened so that they can be stood up as a "standing" piece. The game begins with no pieces on the board, and no pieces ever leave the board. Players give each other one of their pieces to make the first placements.

(Larger and smaller grid sizes are played, with the number of flat pieces per player being roughly the number of squares, with 0 overseers on 4x4 or smaller, and 2 overseers on 7x7 or larger.)

(photo from BGG by @Hovien)

A first player is determined. To begin the game, each player in turn places one of their opponent's pieces in empty squares, and then normal play begins.

In their turn a player can make one of two moves:

• Place a piece from off the board on an empty space. This can be the overseer, a flat piece played flat, or a flat piece played standing.
• Move a stack of pieces, so long as a piece of your color is on top. (A single piece is a stack of one).

A stack move consists of picking up your piece and up to 4 pieces under it, then moving it in orthogonal steps. At each step, at least 1 piece off the bottom of the stack must be left behind. A stack move may not move onto an overseer. A stack move may not move onto any standing stone, except when the step is being made by your overseer, alone with no pieces under it, in which case it flattens the standing stone to flat (and finishes its turn since that must have been the end of the stack move.)

Any type of piece can make a stack move; a standing stone, a flat stone, or your overseer -- as long as it is your piece on top, it can initiate a stack move.

The game is won by making a "road" connecting any two opposite sides of the board with an orthogonal path of your pieces (on top of stacks). The road must be made up of your overseer or flat pieces, not standing pieces. Technically you can only win by road when it is the beginning or end of your turn: if you create a winning road during part of a stack move but cover it up later in the move, it does not count; or, if you finish a stack move having created winning roads for both players, you win because it is the end of your turn.

If the board is full of pieces, or a player runs out of pieces in their reserve, the game ends and the winner is the person with the most flat stones of their color on top of stacks.