Gyve 2023

Gyve (pronounced like "jive") is a drawless unification game for two players: Black and White. It is played on the spaces (cells) of an initially empty hexagonal grid of hexagons (board).

Black starts by making one move, then turns alternate with players making exactly two moves per turn, one move after the other. A move is placing a stone of your color on an empty cell adjacent to N groups of your color. N must be the same for the two moves of a turn.

Passing is not allowed, but, if you cannot make exactly two moves, your turn is skipped. When neither player can make two moves, the game ends and the player with fewer groups wins. A group is a stone along with all stones one can reach from it through a series of steps onto adjacent stones of the same color.

NotesThe game works best on boards with between 6 and 12 cells per side. For quick games on boards with fewer than 6 cells per side, the pie rule is recommended to prevent Black from easily connecting a central stone to multiple edges of the board. The pie rule gives White the option, on their first turn only, to swap sides with Black instead of making a regular move.

Gyve was inspired by a conversation with Michael Amundsen about both designers' previous contributions to the fewest-groups-wins family of games, namely Bolaños' Yodd and Amundsen's Solder and Elea.

—description from the designer