Ido (game)

I do
Game data
author	Bernhard Weber
graphic	Franz Vohwinkel
publishing company	Goldsieber , ; Rio Grande Games
Publishing year	1998
Art	Board game
Teammates	2 to 4
Duration	25 to 50 minutes
Age	from 10 years on

Ido is a tactical board game for up to four players by Bernhard Weber that was published by Goldsieber and Rio Grande Games in 1998 . It is characterized by a few simple rules and minimalist design of the game material.

description

The playing field resembles the abstract , geometric paintings by the artist Piet Mondrian . Mondrian's artistic philosophy also seems to be reflected in the game: The theme is balance of forces and harmony - and the subtitle of the game is “The Art of Playing”. With a balanced course of the game it is also possible at Ido to play a "perfect game" in which there is no winner, but all players finish one after the other in the order in which they started the game. Another central game theme of Ido is the interaction and interdependence of the players and their moves, because every action has a direct effect on the movement possibilities of the other players. There are no dice or other random elements in Ido , it is a game with complete information . Due to the purism of the game idea and the rules, as well as the design of the material, one could get the impression that Ido comes from Japan . The design of the packaging and the name also suggest this conclusion ( ido is the Japanese word for movement ), but it is not a Japanese game. With Ido, however, certain parallels to the classic Japanese board game Go are recognizable, although the game material and the rules are fundamentally different.

Game material

The playing field has colored fields in four different colors for four players, with one field serving as the starting field and the opposite one as the goal. The playing surface consists of a black grid pattern on which a sliding black frame is placed. By combining the lines on the board with the struts of the frame grid, playing fields are created in different shapes: small and large squares , rectangles and L-shapes. By moving the frame, the shape, size and number of fields change and thus new arrangements and game situations arise on the board.

The players each have six pieces of one color: three small cubes and three rectangular cuboids that are twice as large . The cuboids always stand upright on their small square side.

Rules of the game

The aim of the game is to move several or all of the stones from your own starting field on one side of the game board to the opposite target field. Of course, the stones of the other players stand in the way ... In addition, the playing field does not always offer the right fields for the respective stones of the players.

The nine possible positions of the sliding frame grid. Different line patterns are created on the game board, so that the stones have different fields to move. The middle picture shows the starting position at the beginning of the game.

When it is your turn, you must first choose one of three possible actions:

Put a new stone from your own starting field into the playing field.
Move the frame by one unit (horizontally or vertically, never diagonally).
Run with one or more pieces in the playing field. You have as many steps as you have stones in the board. The steps can be distributed arbitrarily on the existing stones, the size of the stones does not matter. You can also do without steps. Each step counts as crossing a black line or crossing the struts of the frame. It is always drawn horizontally or vertically, never diagonally.

When entering the playing field and walking on the playing area, the following rules apply to the fields:

Small cubes may only enter small square fields (according to their size).
The large rectangular stones (cuboids) stand upright and are only allowed to enter the rectangular fields.
Large square fields and L-shaped fields on the playing field must never be entered.
Stones can run over other stones, but not hit them.
In the case of rectangular fields, the player has to decide on which half of the rectangular field a stone is to be placed, because on the other half of the rectangular field there may be another stone next to it (also an opposing stone).

When moving the frame, the rule is that two players may never move the frame one after the other. So if player 1 has moved the frame, only player 3 may choose this action again. If there are only two players, a player may not move the frame again until the next but one move, if this has just happened. The frame may only be moved parallel to the grid lines by the width of a small square field, not diagonally. There are nine possible positions for the frame. When moving it can happen that pieces are moved with and then stand on fields that they are normally not allowed to enter. However, this has no effect on the stones, they can remain on such a space or leave it on the next move.

In order to cross the entire playing field with your own stones, a suitable path must be created on which the stones can walk. However, the fields are laid out in such a way that there are only limited walking opportunities for each type of stone. By skillfully moving the frame, the teammates must therefore find a suitable path across the field for them. When you move the frame, however, all the stones are also moved, so that the game situation sometimes changes significantly: some stones are suddenly favored, others are surprisingly blocked, stones can also be pushed off the playing field. Stones that are pushed off the playing surface by the frame must start again at the start, unless they are pushed onto the player's intended target area.

Especially when playing with four people, when there are many stones on the board, everything starts to move. Then the effects of a frame shift are enormous and the resulting constellation can only be foreseen for experienced players. If you don't look closely, it can happen that the resulting arrangement is different than expected. When playing in pairs, on the other hand, the tactical part of the game is higher because the moves of two players interact less unpredictably.

The movement of the movable frame causes unexpected twists and turns in the course of the game - apparently large protrusions of a player can suddenly be compensated, so that an equilibrium is always created. The rules of the game mean that a kind of pre-established harmony prevails: large imbalances are rare and total profit is not possible, and even large-scale strategies usually do not lead to the goal. Often it is very small, seemingly insignificant decisions that ultimately have a decisive effect on the game. The entire gameplay sometimes appears like a mathematically or algorithmically computable sequence but also play communications and decisions of the fellow a significant role, so that the determinism in the game is broken again and again. Often decisions have to be made as to whether one player wants to cooperate with another or not. In the three- or four-player mode there is sometimes a kingmaker effect : a player who is no longer able to win himself can possibly influence which player will win with his decision for a certain move.

Game variants

The game dynamics of Ido are already complex with the simple standard rules, but due to the openness and minimalism of the rules, other game variants are conceivable. You can invent your own rules, for example, to change the playing time. For example, it can be agreed how many stones have to be brought to the goal. To make the goal of the game more difficult, a certain sequence of stones can be set, e.g. B. that alternately small and large stones have to be brought to the goal. It is also conceivable to equip certain stones with the ability to hit other stones. When playing for two, each player can also play with two colors and combine the allowed moves.