Quabble (2022)

Quabble is a drawless connection game for two players: Black and White. It is played on the spaces (squares) of an initially empty square board. The top and bottom edges of the board are colored black; the left and right edges are colored white. The board squares alternate between a light and a dark color in a checkered fashion. On odd-sized boards, the center square must be light-colored.

Play

Black plays first, then turns alternate. On your turn, perform exactly one of the following actions:

• Place a stone of your color on an empty light square and on each adjoining dark square that you now control. You control a dark square if your stones occupy more than half of its adjacent light squares.

• Place a stone of your color on an empty dark square that you contest. You contest a dark square if your stones occupy exactly half of its adjacent light squares.

You win by completing a chain of interconnected stones of your color touching the two opposite board edges of your color. Two stones are connected if they occupy orthogonally adjacent squares or diagonally adjacent dark squares.

The pie rule is used in order to make the game fair. This means White will have the option, on their first turn only, to swap sides with Black instead of making a regular move.

Variants

Qualos: On your turn, place a stone of your color on an empty light square, or place a stone of your color on an empty dark square that you contest or control, or flip an enemy stone on a dark square that you control. To flip a stone is to replace it with a stone of the opposite color. Controlling and contesting are based on orthogonal lines of sight rather than on mere adjacencies, and stones on dark squares also count towards them.

Fast Quabble: On your turn, place a stone of your color on an empty light square and on each adjoining dark square that you now control. You control a dark square if your stones occupy at least half of its adjacent light squares.

Conquare: Play on an uncheckered square board. Vertices take the place of light squares, and spaces take the place of dark squares. Two stones are connected if they occupy orthogonally adjacent spaces or a space and an adjacent vertex.

Fast Conquare: Conquare with the control rule from Fast Quabble.

-description from designer