Tripen 2013

Tripen is a two-player game played on a regular hexagonal board with an odd number of cells per side. The perimeter of the board is divided into two red and two blue segments, all of equal length, alternating in color. Each segment starts at a corner cell and ends at the middle cell of an adjacent side. The board is initially empty.

Tripen is an acronym for TRIvalent PENtagon. Draws cannot occur in Tripen.

PlayThe two players, Red and Blue, place one token per turn onto an unoccupied portion of a cell, starting with Red. (Tokens must be placed front side up.) Tokens may not be placed to overlap onto existing, onboard tokens. Passing is not allowed.

Red’s tokens are colored red on the front and white on the back. Likewise, Blue’s tokens are colored blue on the front and white on the back. The white back prevents mirroring the pentagonal shape of the tokens by flipping them over. Tokens are pentagonal and occupy one half of a cell.

To win you must form a path of your own color connecting the two borders of your color.

To make the game fair, Blue will have the option, on their first turn only, to swap sides with Red instead of making a regular move.