Rincala

Color-stacking in circles

Material

• Gameboard with 8 hollows in a circle
• 24 stackable pieces in 4 colors (red, green, yellow, and white)

Objective

Players try to get hold of as many valuable playing pieces as possible. Who will have the highest score in the end?

Preparation

Place the playing pieces at random in the 8 hollows. In the initial setup, each stack is 3 pieces high and the same color may never lie directly on top of one another.

A possible game setup.

The start player is determined randomly.

Play

Players alternate in taking turns.

1. Moving a stack

On your turn, you take a complete stack of your choice and spread all the pieces individually into the successive spaces.

You always drop the piece from the very bottom of that stack into the next hollow and keep doing this until all the pieces are placed.

The playing pieces are put in empty hollows as well as on stacks.

Single pieces are also considered stacks. If you move only a single piece, this piece consequently makes only one step onto the adjacent space.

Movement rules:

• You may move clockwise or counter-clockwise. During a move, you may not change direction.
• During a move, you have to drop a playing piece onto another stack at least once. You may not drop pieces into empty hollows only!
• A stack may consist of no more than eight pieces. If a move encounters an eight piece stack, this stack is jumped over without dropping a piece onto it.

2. Collecting pieces

After the spreading, you must take one piece from each stack that now has two pieces of the same color on its very top and place it in front of you.

3. Your turn again?

In the very first turn, as the start player, you have only one move. Otherwise you must move again until, in your turn, you

• were able to take one or more pieces, and/or
• you had to drop at least one piece into an empty hollow.

Example: The marked stack to be moved.

If the marked stack moves clockwise, it is landing on an empty space after the second step and also it captures a piece in the third step. Therefore it’s the next player’s turn.

If instead the stack is moved counter-clockwise, no piece is captured and no empty hollow is visited. The active player gets another move. Moving anti-clockwise again with the big yellow stack will catch one red and two white pieces.

End of the game

The game ends as soon as there is only one playing piece in each of the four colors left on the board or if no move is possible.

Now players score points for their pieces according to color:

• Red: 4 points
• Green: 3 points
• Yellow: 2 points
• White: 1 point

The player who scored the most points wins. A game can also end in a tie or, in a three player game, with more than one winner.