Sumendi 2026

Sumendi (from Basque: sumendi, meaning “volcano”) is a territorial 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, although boards of size 5 or 7 are also valid. Each player has access to a sufficient supply of pieces of their own color. During the game, these pieces may form volcanoes (stacks) or lava (individual pieces).

Definitions: A volcano is one or more pieces located on the same cell. The height of a volcano is the number of pieces it contains. A lava piece is an individual piece placed on a cell without forming stacks. An island is a maximal set of connected lava pieces of the same color. An isolated lava piece is also an island. The size of an island is the number of lava pieces it contains.

Turns:Black plays first, and then players alternate. On your turn, place a volcano of your color on an empty cell whose height is equal to the number of adjacent cells not occupied by other volcanoes.

If the new volcano is placed adjacent to one or more existing volcanoes, each of those volcanoes loses one unit of height, which is spilled as a lava piece of its same color onto an empty cell. The lava must be placed in a straight line from the volcano, at a distance no greater than the height it had before losing that unit, and without jumping over intervening pieces of any kind. If any of the affected volcanoes cannot spill lava according to this rule, the placement is illegal and may not be made.

End of the game:The game ends when no player can make a placement. At the end of the game, the minimal common height between both players is first compared (the lowest height at which both players have at least one stack). At that height, each player scores the number of stacks they have at that height plus the total size of the islands adjacent to those stacks. The player with the higher score wins. In case of a tie, the comparison is repeated at the next minimal common height, and so on, ascending through the heights up to a maximum of 6. If all levels are tied, the game ends in a draw.

To balance the game, before starting, the first player places a black volcano on an empty cell and the second player chooses a side. This balancing method is called the pie rule.

—description from the designer