Connect the Dots is a game using the components of
Octiles, published by Kadon Enterprises. It is for two
players only.
This set of rules is published with the review and consent of the
trademark holder. If you wish to net.publish a variant for the
Octiles set, please respect his trademark and obtain his permission.
His contact address is dale.walton@alum.mit.edu.
Set-up
Each player chooses two colors, and takes four of the runners of
each color. Place the runners as shown on the map below - the
other runners and markers are not used in this variant. The octiles
start off the board, in a single stack, with the order unknown to
both players and only the top tile showing.
In this example, one player takes Teal and Plum, while the other
player takes Gold and Orange.
Map key: ___ ___
/ \ / \
| | | <---- Octile Spaces
/ \___/ \___/ \
\ / \ / \ / <---- Stops
t <---- Teal Runner
^
p <---- Plum Runner
^
g <---- Gold Runner
^
o <---- Orange Runner
^
___ ___
/ \ / \
| | |
/t\___/g\___/t\___/g\___
\^/ \^/ \^/ \^/ \
| | | | |
___/o\___/p\___/o\___/p\___/
/ \^/ \^/ \^/ \^/ \
| | | | | |
\___/t\___/g\___/t\___/g\___/
/ \^/ \^/ \^/ \^/
| | | | |
\___/o\___/p\___/o\___/p\
\^/ \^/ \^/ \^/
| | |
\___/ \___/
Tile Placement
A round is fairly short, and consists solely of tile placement.
There is no movement of "runners" in this variant, nor any tile
rotation. Once seventeen tiles have been placed on the board, the
round is over.
Determine who is to start by lot. (A simple system is for one
player to hide a marker in his hand with a felt side up. The
other player guesses which color felt is on top. If correct, he
starts. Otherwise, the other player begins.)
The first player takes the top tile and places it on any octile
space. Once he's chosen a space (put the octile there, even if
just "to see how it looks"), the octile must go in that space, but
he may rotate it as much as he wishes before setting it down in
its final position.
The second player then takes the top octile, and also places it in
any empty space. Players continue alternating placing tiles, until
all seventeen spaces have been filled.
Scoring
Once all seventeen spaces are filled in, it is time to score the
round.
Score one player at a time, making hash marks on a piece of paper,
or some other fair system. Starting with one of his pieces at a
corner, and proceeding in a systematic manner, count the number of
paths leading from each of one player's pieces that connect to
another one of his pieces directly. (I.e., directly from one stop
to another, not passing through any other stop on the way.)
Points are scored as follows:
- Two points for a path which connects two identically colored
pieces.
- One point for a path which connects two pieces of different
colors but both belonging to the owning player. (E.g., plum to
teal in our example above.)
- Zero points for any other path: those leading to a start circle,
or those leading to one of your opponent's pieces.
Each path will be scored twice: once from each end. This is because
you score by starting with one runner, determining all points for
that runner by tracing paths, then proceed to the next runner and
do the same, until all eight runners for one player have been
scored.
You do not score any points for a path which loops back to the stop
it originated at. It must connect to a different piece to
score.
Victory
Players should agree before the game starts what the victory objectives
are. Some suggestions include:
- A one-round game.
- Whoever has the highest score after a set number of rounds
(which can range from two rounds to ten rounds for masochists -
perhaps three to five rounds would be a good choice).
- Whoever reaches a target score first is the winner. If both
players hit the target in the same round, the one with the highest
total score wins. Suggested target scores are 25 or 50 points.
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