Polarity (board game)

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Polarity is a board game with magnetic pieces that combines strategy , skill and physics.

Emergence

Polarity was developed in 1985 by Canadian artist and designer Douglas Seaton. It was first published in 1986, and since then the rights have changed hands several times. Previous publishers have included Telemotion Technologies, Irwin Toy, Mattel and Temple Games, and the game has been published by Ekos since 2005.

construction

The game consists of one red and 52 black-and-white magnetic tokens (disks) and a game mat. The playing field is a printed circle, in the middle the point for the red stone is also marked. The aim of the game is to collect points by building towers from disks.

Two game pieces lean against a tower made of two pieces

regulate

A turn begins as soon as a player with a stone moves his hand over the circle. Its color must face up. All mistakes that occur during a move are mistakes made by the active player. A move does not end until the opponent has started his move. Both players take turns laying 5 starting stones. Each piece must lie within the playing field and must not touch either the red or any other piece. The following stones (leaner) are "leaned against" your own, they float in equilibrium between the repulsive magnetic fields and gravity. An error occurs when a stone that has already been played falls over, is displaced by more than its circumference, touches another stone or snaps together with it. If stones snap at the game stone in hand, the move is forfeited and the player must put all stones in his hand back to his supply. Pieces that touch after a mistake on the playing surface, the opponent may try to transform into a tower by lifting one of the stones of the chain and trying to snap all touching stones together to form a tower. If he succeeds in this without making another mistake, he may turn this tower over to his color and place it anywhere on the playing field. Several towers that are not connected can be transformed one after the other. However, if the active player makes a mistake, he must add the raised tower to his stone supply. The other player may try to convert towers that have not yet been converted.

Leaning stones can be knocked over with your own token, after this deliberate mistake you may not lean your own stone against, but you have won a new starting stone to lean more stones against. The game ends as soon as a player has no more pieces in his supply. Stones in towers each count as a plus point, stones in the supply count as a minus point. The player with the most points wins.

The more stones there are on the playing field, the more competing magnetic fields make it more difficult to bring a stone into balance without making a mistake, especially leaning stones can easily lead to mistakes. Large towers also have a strong influence on the stones in the vicinity, they can sometimes make it impossible to lean against a stone nearby.

Polarity is particularly fascinating because of the combination of strategy and skill and because no games or moves can be reproduced.

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