Swaptimum is a two-player game played on a square board of any size, initially empty. The two players, Red and Blue, take turns placing their own checkers onto unoccupied squares, one checker per turn, starting with Red. Passing is not allowed, but if you don't have an available placement, your turn is skipped.
You win if there is a path of checkers of your color (interconnected via horizontal or vertical adjacencies, or both) connecting the two opposite board sides of your color. It’s possible that a player may win on the other player’s turn.
PlayA crosscut is a 2×2 area with two diagonally adjacent red checkers and two diagonally adjacent blue checkers.
You can place a checker on any unoccupied square not ruled out by the placement restriction (see below). If your placement forms a crosscut, then make a swap:
between any two checkers in the crosscut, OR
between any checker in the crosscut and any other checker not in the crosscut which is horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent to said checker,
which kills the crosscut and doesn’t form a new crosscut, concluding your turn.
If your placement would form a crosscut, and if every possible crosscut killing swap would form a new crosscut, then said placement is illegal for you.
Design notesSwaptimum was inspired by Reneo (2023) by Luis Bolaños Mures. Luis is a world class abstract game designer and the leading authority on OOSCGs (orthogonal only square connection games. That is, only horizontal and vertical, but not diagonal, adjacencies count as connections.)
Swaptimum is my most recent in a series of OOSCGs after a continuous, obsessive, months long design odyssey. Of my last 18 attempted OOSCGs, only five (Halfcut, Clump, Crisscross, Flipstop, and Swaptimum) survived Luis's scrutiny. Most either didn't work or were very similar to what had already been done, many by Luis himself.
Abstract Strategy · Chaining, Connections, Grid Movement, Pattern Building, Pattern Recognition, Square Grid, Tile Placement
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