Congeners 2023

Congeners is a strategy game for two players: Black and White. It is played on the hexes (cells) of an initially empty hexagonal board. The recommended size is 6 cells per side, but boards of 5 or 7 are also valid. Each player has access to a sufficient supply of stones of their own color.

Definitions: A creature is a maximal set of connected stones of the same color. A single stone is also a creature. The size of a creature is the number of stones it contains.

Turns:Black plays first and then turns alternate. On your turn, perform the following actions in order:

Move a stone from one of your creatures to any empty cell adjacent to that creature. Single-stone creatures cannot move. The movement may jump over any number of stones of either color. Place a stone of your color on any empty cell lying in a straight line from the moved stone, provided that all intermediate cells are empty. The placed stone may not be adjacent to the moved stone. Pass your turn if you cannot perform actions 1 and 2 in that order; otherwise, passing is not allowed.

A creature may bite an adjacent smaller enemy creature by moving one of its stones onto a cell occupied by an enemy stone; the bitten stone is removed from the board. At the end of your turn, no friendly creature may end up split, and no two or more friendly creatures may end up merged.

End of the game:The game ends when neither player can make a move. Each player scores independently. Starting with their largest creatures:

Score each shape, regardless of symmetry. If it is represented by only one creature, it scores 0 points. Otherwise, it scores a number of points equal to the total number of stones in all creatures representing that shape, multiplied by their size. If both players obtain the same score, compare the remaining shapes of that size. If the tie persists, repeat the procedure with the next size, and so on until a difference is found. If neither player scores points, the creatures of both players are compared in descending order of size until a difference is found.

The player with the higher score wins.

To balance the game, before starting, the first player places one black creature of two stones and one white creature of two stones, not adjacent to each other, and the second player chooses a side. This balancing method is called the two-stone pie rule.

—description from the designer