Hinge 2024

Hinge by Corey L. Clark

Introduction: Hinge is a dynamic abstract game in the genre of exnihilation. This rather small category of games has the property that they all start on empty boards and end with elimination of all of a player’s discs, resulting in that player’s loss. The advantage Hinge has over other Exnihilation games is superior visual clarity and ergonomics. Corey L. Clark designed Hinge in winter of 2024. He heavily improved on and refined the game in 2026. A game of Hinge cannot end in a draw, nor is there even forced passing in Hinge.

Objective: The objective of Hinge is to eliminate all enemy discs

Equipment: Hinge is best played on a hex hex board with side length 6-9. You must also have an unlimited supply of flippable discs, with one player’s color on one side and the other player’s color on the other side.

Gameplay: Turns alternate starting with Green. On your turn you have two options, either place a disc adjacent to no other discs, discs of your color, or discs of both colors (never exclusively next to enemy discs) or swipe an enemy group.

Swiping involves moving a disc around a friendly disc one or two spaces (including back to where the disc originated) over empty spaces or friendly discs, such that the moving disc contacts at least one enemy group at the end of the move (possibly even one it already contacted at the outset of the turn). Swiping results in the complete conversion of exactly one of these enemy groups — if you contact more than one enemy group, you must choose which one to capture. You may even swipe by moving off the edge of the board.

You may never split a group by swiping, this includes the special case where this happens briefly only as a result of the disc moving between two cells (fig 2) and the case where the first move of a swipe merges two groups together and the second move splits the groups apart (fig3). In general, at any time during a turn the maximal set of discs which can be reached through a series of adjacent steps between discs of your own color is the entirety of the group to which the moving discs belongs.

Your turn ends as soon as you have made any valid swiping move (the disc has moved to an empty space next to an enemy group); you cannot make a 2 move swipe if you make a valid 1 move swipe in the process.

—description from the designer