Rock, Paper, Pyramid

[unixronin]

I have devised a new game for Icehouse pieces, based loosely upon an (unfortunately, overly complex and unworkable) idea that the Dread Pirate Bignum came up with this morning.  The working title of the new game is Rock, Paper, Pyramid (but see the caveat below).

The game works like this:

1. Rock, Paper, Pyramid is played on a square, hexagonal or octagonal board as available or necessary, allowing for up to eight players.  One full stack of pieces is required per player.  The size of the board is to be such that each player has a row of five adjacent squares along their facing edge which are not shared with any other player.  For example, two players can play on a 5x5 square board, but three players would require at minimum either a hexagon of side 5, or a square of at least side 7.

   (Well, OK, those aren't the only possibilities.  If you want to try to construct a board with pentagonal, heptagonal or nonagonal symmetry, for example ... hey, knock yourself out.  A triangular board for three players would be possible, but would probably be unplayably crowded unless significantly larger than the minimum possible side 7.)

2. Each player begins play with a stack of pieces along their edge, one nest on each of the five squares.  Each turn, each player may move one piece one square in any direction.  The opening moves must un-nest pieces in top-down order; a piece may not be moved from the bottom of a full or partial nest.  Up to one friendly piece of each size may share any square, but friendly pieces, once un-nested, may never re-nest.

3. When hostile pieces meet, pieces of the same size block each other.  A S may not move onto a square already occupied by a hostile S, and so on.  Hostile pieces of differing sizes that enter the same square must always either capture or be captured.  L captures M, M captures S, S captures L.  Any piece that moves onto a square containing a hostile piece that could capture it is automatically captured by it at the end of that move.  This does not consume the other player's turn.

4. Captured pieces remain on the board until the beginning of the next turn of the player whose move initiated the capture.  During this time, the entire stack may be recaptured by another player.  At the beginning of the next turn of the original initiating player, the entire stack, except for the topmost piece, is removed from the board and placed in the capture pile of the player who owns the topmost piece. 

5. Special cases:  A partial nest in its starting square that has not yet been fully unstacked can be captured, provided no piece that would block the capturing piece is present on the square.  In practical terms, this means that a L piece can capture a M and S that are still nested.  In this case, the S piece on the bottom of the nest is captured along with the M, and does not automatically capture the attacking L piece.  A full nest still untouched on its starting square cannot be captured, because it automatically blocks all possible attacking pieces.

6. Victory conditions:  The game can end in one of three ways — Last Man Standing (all players but one have been eliminated); Mexican Standoff (no surviving player can make any non-trivial move that does not result in automatic capture); or stalemate (all players agree that a stalemate has been reached).

7. Scoring:  In the event of a Last Man Standing victory, the surviving player is of course the winner, and the other players are ranked in reverse order of elimination.  In the event of a Mexican Standoff or a stalemate, victory is determined by counting up the total number of pieces, including the player's own, in each player's capture pile.  Any ties in this count are resolved by a recount of only captured pieces owned by the tied players.  If any players are still tied after recounting ... well, it's a tie.  :)

So far, there's just one problem that hasn't yet been resolved:  freetrav has pointed out to me that there is already a game called RockPaperPyramid on the Icehouse Games wiki.  So, I need to find a non-conflicting name if I want to post it on Icehouse Games (as suggested by freetrav).  Rock, Pyramid, Scissors is a possibility, but it doesn't flow as nicely as the one-two-three rhythm of Rock, Paper, Pyramid and I don't really like it.  Suggestions are welcome.

It should be noted that this game has not yet been more than minimally play-tested.