Unravel 2024

Unravel is a two-player game played on a square board of any size, initially empty. The top and bottom board edges are colored red. The left and right edges are colored blue. The two players, Red and Blue, take turns placing their own checkers onto unoccupied squares, one checker per turn, starting with Red. Both players will always have a placement available.

To win, Red must form an orthogonally (horizontally and/or vertically) interconnected path of red checkers connecting the two red board edges. Blue must connect the two blue edges.

Unravel is predated by two similar games: Resolve (2020) by Alek Erickson, and Dissolve (2020), a Resolve variant by Luis Bolaños Mures.

PlayIf your placed checker forms a crosscut, you must immediately "unravel" the crosscut by swapping your other checker in the crosscut with one of the enemy checkers in the crosscut. A crosscut is a 2×2 area with two diagonally adjacent red checkers and two diagonally adjacent blue checkers.

If the swapped checkers create new crosscuts, do likewise with them. Swap two opposite color checkers in the new crosscuts, not including the swapped checkers that completed the new crosscuts.

If your placement creates multiple crosscuts, you can choose any one of them to unravel. Sometimes a swap will neutralize two crosscuts simultaneously. After you unravel a crosscut, check to see if there are any remaining crosscuts on the board, and choose any of them to unravel, but never by swapping the swapped checkers that completed the crosscuts. And so on until no new crosscuts are formed, concluding your turn. The original crosscut propagates, fans out, and eventually dissipates.

Design notesCrosscut dissipation is a beautiful concept. Resolve, Dissolve, and Unravel all implement this concept with similar mechanisms. When I learned of the other games, I initially decided not to write an Unravel rule sheet. But after studying and discussing the games, I realized that Unravel brings something significant to the table: natural finitude. There’s no possibility of a cycle of moves in Unravel, either by one player acting alone during his turn, or by both players in successive turns.