Tak (strategy game)

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Tak
Game of Tak.jpg
Game data
author James Ernest , Patrick Rothfuss
publishing company Cheapass Games
Publishing year 2016
Art Strategic board game
Teammates 2 players
Duration 20-40 minutes
Age from 12 years

Tak is a strategic board game for two players. It was designed by James Ernest and Patrick Rothfuss and published by Cheapass Games in 2016 . The game was first mentioned in the second volume of the regicide chronicle , The Fear of the Wise , by Patrick Rothfuss and developed on the basis of this description. The aim of the game is to connect two opposite sides with a street of your own stones.

Emergence

After Patrick Rothfuss and James Ernest had already worked together on the card game Pairs , Ernest Rothfuss asked to be allowed to create rules for the Tak mentioned in the regicide chronicle. Rothfuss was not keen on the idea, but offered Ernest to reconsider it as soon as he tried the developed game.

When James Ernest presented the finished game to Patrick Rothfuss, he said he was speechless with enthusiasm. As a result, a Kickstarter campaign was launched with the goal of $ 50,000, which was achieved in less than 24 hours. Ultimately, the campaign raised over $ 1.3 million to make the game.

regulate

Tak has only a few characters and rules, which are explained below.

Pawns

There are two different game pieces in the game, each of which is in the two player colors.

  • The normal game pieces can have various simple shapes. However, the stones must be stackable and can be placed upright.
  • The Kapstein (abbreviation of capital stone ) , also called the big thing or cap , is often more elaborately shaped. It can take any shape that has a flat bottom.

The normal stones can be used in different ways.

  • A flat stone , also flat , stone or bit called, is a flat lying normal stone.
  • A wall , also known as a standing stone or wall , is a normal stone that stands vertically.
  • A stack consists of any number of flat stones stacked on top of one another. Either a cape stone, a wall or another flat stone can stand on its top. The player who owns the top stone controls the entire pile. In the game principle, individual stones are also viewed as a stack with a height of one.

construction

Tak is usually played on a square board, but can also be played on any flat surface as long as the middle of the - then imaginary - board is marked. The size of the board varies between 3x3 and 8x8 fields. However, the most common game is played on a 5x5 or 6x6 game board. With the help of so-called hybrid boards, games of different sizes can be played on one and the same board by placing the stones on the fields for odd sizes and on the corners of fields for even sizes. In some cases, there are also hybrid boards inverted in the manner just mentioned.

Depending on the size of the board, the players receive a different number of tiles.

Number of stones per player
Field size 3x3 4x4 5x5 6x6 7x7 8x8
Number of normal stones 10 15th 21st 30th 40 50
Number of cape stones 0 0 1 1 1-2 2

Game start

At the beginning of the first game, a drawing is drawn to determine which player may start. In the following games, the players usually take turns with the first move.

On the first turn, each player places one of the opponent's flat stones on any free space. You only play with your own pieces in the following turns.

Train sequence

In a normal turn the player has two options: Either he places a stone on an unoccupied space or he moves a stack onto spaces that are not diagonally adjacent.

Set stones

A player can place one stone on an unoccupied space on the board , regardless of whether it is a flat stone, a wall or a cape stone .

Move stack

A player can move a stack per turn . He takes a number of the top stones, never more than the length of the board, and moves them in a straight line that is not diagonal. The direction can be chosen freely. On every space passed, with the exception of the starting space of the movement, at least one stone from the pile must be placed, viewed from bottom to top. Stacks can move onto other stacks, regardless of whether they are controlled by the opponent or not.

When moving, please note:

  • Stacks cannot go diagonally.
  • Stacks may not change direction while moving .
  • No fields or stones may be jumped over.
  • The stones on which a stack is drawn can only be moved in the next round.
  • No pile can move onto a wall or cape stone.
  • The cape stone can knock down walls if it moves alone. However, as part of a stack, it can be moved along first, but to knock over a wall, it must be moved on alone.
    • Overturned walls become flat stones.
    • After knocking over, the movement of the cape stone must be stopped.

Announce Tak

With Tak, it's polite to tell your opponent when you're just one move away from victory. As in the game of chess , this is usually said to be Tak . Similar to checkmate , Tinuë is announced in a situation that is hopeless for the other player .

Playing

The player who first built a road between two opposite sides of the board wins. A road is any row of stacks of the same color, whereby these must touch each other at the edges. In addition, stacks with walls on them are not considered part of a road, but cape stones are.

If a player completes an opposing street with his last move, the player who moves wins.

Alternative ending

If all of a player's pieces on the game board or every field on the game board are occupied, the game ends. The player who controls the most stacks of flat stones wins in this case.

Rating

The winner receives one point for each field on the game board and each game piece not played.

Other scoring methods

  • If the street is a straight line, the pieces not played are doubled in the scoring.
  • If a player wins without playing his cape, the pieces not played count double.
  • If the road only consists of individual pieces, the pieces that are not played are doubled in the scoring.
  • If the road only consists of stacks that consist of more than one piece, the pieces that are not played count three times.

notation

Portable Tak notation

The Portable Tak Notation (PTN) was developed by Benjamin Wochinski during the beta phase of the game to record the moves of a Tak game and is largely based on the Portable Game Notation .

In the PTN, each round is numbered starting with one. The number is followed by the first player's move and then that of the second player, both separated by spaces. Only then does the next round follow, which is usually noted in the next line, but can also only be separated by a space.

Train notation

The PTN can be thought of as an abbreviation for a detailed train description. For example, sees 

Nimm vier Steine vom Feld e3 und bewege sie nach links, wobei du erst 2 und dann jeweils einen Stein ablegst.

in PTN as follows: 

4e3<211
Fields

The fields are named according to their row and column, with the columns alphabetically ascending from left to right and the rows in numbers in ascending order from bottom to top. The field that is at the bottom left as seen by the first player is called a1 and the field that is at the top right of a 5x5 board is called e5.

Stones

Cape stones are indicated in the PTN by a capital C, walls by a capital S and flat stones by a capital F. The F for flat stones is usually left out.

Directions

Movement away from the a-column is represented by a greater than sign or a right-pointing arrow, and movement to the higher numbers is shown by a plus sign or an upward arrow. Correspondingly, the movement towards the a column is also noted by a less than sign or an arrow pointing to the left and the movement to the lower numbers by a minus sign or an arrow pointing downwards.

Set stones

The setting of stones is shown in the PTN by first noting the type of stone and then the field on which this stone is to be placed.

Examples
train notation alternative
Place a flat stone on a3 a3 Fa3
Put a wall on d4 Nd4
Place a cape stone on c1 Cc1
Move stack

Moving a pile is shown in the PTN by first noting the number of stones taken from the start field, then the start field, the direction, the number of stones placed on the individual fields and the type of the top stone on the end field become. The number of stones to be drawn can be omitted if only a single stone is moved. In addition, the stones to be placed on the individual fields can be omitted if the stack is only moved one field. In addition, the type of stone does not have to be described, but it should, for a better overview, at least for the wall and cape stone.

Examples
train notation alternative
Move a stone from d3 to d4 d3 + 1d3 + 1
Move two stones from c1 to b1 2c1 < 2c1 <2
Move four stones from a5 to e5, place one stone on each square 4a5> 1111
Move three stones from b4 to b2, first place one stone, then two. There is now a wall on b2 3b4-12S 3b4-12

Result

The results at the end of a game are written one line below the last lap display.

Result notation
The first player wins by a straight R-0
The second player wins by a straight 0-R
The first player wins by flat victory F-0
The second player wins by flat victory 0-F
The first player wins by giving up or timeout 1-0
The second player wins by giving up or timeout 0-1
draw 1 / 2-1 / 2

Markings

Markings can be written after a noted move.

Objective markings

An asterisk is used to indicate that a wall was overturned by a cape stone in a train . In addition, Tak is indicated by an apostrophe and Tinuë by two apostrophes or a quotation mark.

Subjective marks

Trains can be rated using a combination of exclamation marks and question marks. From bad to good: 

??, ?, ?!, !?, !, !!

Comments

You can comment on a game recorded in PTN as you like. To do this, the comment must be surrounded by curly brackets, be at least one space away from train notations and must not contain any closing curly braces.

PTN files

PTN files can contain additional metadata in addition to the train notation. To do this, first the day corresponding to the data is written in square brackets and then the data in quotation marks. A PTN file should contain at least the tags Date (date in the format yyyy.mm.dd), Player1 (name of the white player), Player2 (name of the black player), Result (result of the game) and Size (size of the game board) .

Example of a PTN file
[Date "2019.3.3"]
[Player1 "Spieler1"]
[Player2 "Spieler2"]
[Size "5"]
[Result "0-R"]

1. e2 c3
2. c4 c1
3. b1 b2
4. Cb4 c2
5. Sa2 Cb3
6. c3- c1+
7. d2 2c2>
8. a2> b3-
9. a2 2b2<
0-R

Tak Positional System

The Tak Positional System was developed to record the position of the board at a specific point in time. It is based on the Forsyth-Edwards notation . A white stone is coded as 1, a black stone as 2. If the stone is not a flat stone, a C is added to the number for a cape stone and an S for a wall. When describing a stack, the codes of the individual stones are strung together from the bottom to the top without any gaps. In order to display the complete board, the comma-separated representations of the individual stacks are now lined up from top left to bottom right, with the individual rows being separated by slashes. To display empty fields, one uses an x, to which the number of fields is appended in the case of several consecutive empty fields (e.g. x3). The current number of moves and laps follow, separated from the display of the board by a space.

Examples

Empty 5x5 board at the beginning of a game: 

x5/x5/x5/x5/x5 1 1

Example of a notation within a 5x5 game (round 26, it is white's turn): 

x3,12,2S/x,22S,22C,11,21/121,212,12,1121C,1212S/21S,1,21,211S,12S/x,21S,2,x2 1 26

Use in the Portable Tak notation

A TPS notation can be inserted into the PTN like a normal day. To do this, first the tag TPS is written in square brackets and then the board notation written in quotation marks.

For example: 

[TPS "x3/x3/x3" 1 1]

Terms in Tak

At Tak there are some special terms that are listed below.

  • The maximum number of stones that can be moved as a stack is called the stacking limit or hand size. It corresponds to the number of fields on one side of the board, e.g. B. 5 in a 5x5 playing field.
  • A double street describes the end of the game by completing two streets at the same time.
  • A Flat Victory is the name of the alternate ending.
  • As prisoners stones are referred to, which are in a controlled by the enemy stack.
  • Reservists are called stones that are in a pile of the same color.
  • A cape stone standing on a stone of the same color is called a hard cap or hunter .
  • A cape stone that stands on a stone of the same color is called a soft cap or soldier.
  • A stack is said to be hard or hot if it contains a lot of reservists.
  • A pile that contains many prisoners is called soft or cold .
  • The method of using one stone to bring all of the opponent's flat stones into a pile is called playing the den-sheriff or vacuuming .
  • Range is the distance that is effectively controlled by a stack.
  • As guards walls are referred to, which limit the range of a high stack strong.
  • A pocket is a list in which the cape stone stands between several high stacks.
  • A square made of four flat and or cape stones of the same color is called a citadel .
  • Rockfall denotes a strong strategy. This name was mentioned in The Fear of the Wise , but there is still some debate about what the strategy might be.
  • Bredon's parade is seen as a way out of a rockfall.

Game names

Games on some particular board sizes are given special names.

Field size Surname
4x4 Beginners game
5x5 Traveler game
6x6 Game of nobility
8x8 Game of masters

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tak Description. cheapass.com, accessed June 15, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Patrick Rothfuss: The fear of the wise 1 . 2nd Edition. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-608-93928-6 , pp. 550 .
  3. ↑ Tak: A Beautiful Game. Retrieved June 16, 2017 (American English).
  4. ↑ Tak: A Beautiful Game. Retrieved June 16, 2017 (American English).
  5. ↑ Tak - parlor game will soon become a reality. Kvothe.de, April 20, 2016, accessed June 16, 2017 .
  6. ↑ TakWebRules. (PDF) Retrieved June 15, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Patrick Rothfuss, James Ernest: TakWebRules.pdf. (PDF) p. 4 , accessed on October 25, 2017 (English).
  8. ↑ Portabe Tak notation. Retrieved March 3, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Portabe Tak notation. Retrieved March 3, 2019 .
  10. ↑ PTN File Format. Retrieved March 3, 2019 .
  11. ^ Tak Positional System. Retrieved March 3, 2019 .
  12. ↑ a b Tak rules. (PDF) Retrieved June 15, 2017 .
  13. ^ Talk about Tak with Patrick Rothfuss & James Ernest. Retrieved June 16, 2017 .
  14. ↑ tayacan: Citadel Attacks. In: Let's Play Tak. September 28, 2016. Retrieved June 20, 2017 .