渋 Spook

A game for the Shibumi object by Dieter Stein

Material

• Shibumi set: 4 × 4 square board, 15 red, 14 black, and 1 white ball

Objective

Get all of your balls caught by Spooky the ghost.

Play

The board starts empty.

A visit to the haunted castle

Two players, Red and Black, take turns placing one ball of their colour either on an empty board hole or on a 2 × 2 platform. Starting with Red the pyramid is built up until in the last turn Black places the white ball (Spooky the ghost) on top.

After the setup phase.

Then Red makes the first move of the getaway phase of the game.

The getaway

To be played in candlelight.

On their turn a player must either

• remove a ball (of any colour) directly supporting only Spooky and drop him or
• remove a free ball (of any colour) which is orthogonally adjacent to Spooky and move Spooky there. If possible this move may be repeated arbitrarily removing additional balls of the same colour.

These options cannot be combined in one turn.

Only if no move is available then

• if Spooky is isolated (only empty spaces orthogonally around), he must be placed orthogonally adjacent to any ball on the board or on a platform,
• otherwise one unpinned ball of the opponent must be removed (a ball drop may occur).

As usual, pinned balls (supporting more than one ball) may not be removed.

End of the game

The player who has no more balls of his colour on the board in the getaway phase wins the game.