Marvin 2012

Marvin is played on the intersections of a checkerboard which form a centered, odd size square such as 5x5 or 7x7. The board starts out empty. Two players, White and Red, each have sufficient checkers of their own color. Players will always have a move available and must make one. Passing is not allowed. White moves first.

PlayPlayers take turns adding stacks of their own color of height one (singleton) or two (king) to unoccupied points on the board, one stack per turn. Immediately after adding a stack, a player may be required to remove one or more checkers of either or both colors from the board, concluding his turn.

A block is defined as a filled rectangle (with horizontal and vertical sides) of stacks, of either or both colors. Each dimension of a block has a minimum length of two. A block is as large as it can be. That is, it’s never a subset of another, larger block.

If the placement of a stack does not complete the formation of a block, then said stack must be a singleton, and said placement concludes the player's turn. No checkers are removed.

If a player forms one or more blocks with his placement, then said placement must be a king, and said player must immediately remove all singletons, regardless of color, from all of the newly formed blocks, concluding his turn. If a newly formed block is comprised entirely of kings (i.e. no singletons) then no checkers are removed from that block.

Eventually the board will be completely filled with kings. The player having the most kings on the board wins.