GOBBLER

Copyright (c) 2002 Luke Weinsman

This game is played on the following board:

 

LITTLE - The Little player moves three of his stones one cell in any (orthogonal and diagonal) direction. Littles can be stacked in a single cell (there's no limit) A Little cannot move more than once in a single turn. The Little Player does not need to use all his moves. A Little cannot move to a cell occupied by a Gobbler. The Little player starts moving. GOBBLER - The Gobbler player moves one of his pieces either one or two chess Knight move jumps  (a knight move is a jump two spaces in one direction, then one space over, making the shape of an L).  The Gobbler eats any Littles it lands on. It must consume two or more Littles in its two hops, and will stop hopping as soon as it consumes two or more Littles (so if it lands on two Littles in its first hop, it eats them and then immediately stops moving).  A move than consumes less than two Littles is invalid Scattering - When a Gobblers stops moving, all adjacent Littles run directly away from the Gobbler one cell.  If a Little is up against the edge of the board but on the diagonal with the Gobbler it slides down the edge one space.  If it is stuck in the corner, it is pinned and eaten.  If it is directly adjacent to the Gobbler and on the edge of the board, it is pinned and eaten.  If a Little would run into the jaws of another Gobbler, it is eaten.  Pinned and eaten Littles do not count towards the two Littles eaten per move requirement for a Gobbler. Starving - If a Gobbler does not have a valid move, it starves and is removed from the board.  Even if the Gobbler could reach one Little, but not two, the Gobbler starves.  A Gobbler starves even if the other Gobbler is still able to move. GOAL - Gobblers win if they eat 40 Littles, otherwise if both Gobblers starve before that, the Littles win.

An scattering example The Gobbler jump from cell [1] to cell [2] then to b3 (he must have eaten two or more Littles in the jumping's). In the scattering, one Little was pinned and eaten (at cell a3), and one was chased into the maw of the other Gobbler.

Some words from the author: One way for the Littles to survive is to sacrifice Littles so the Gobblers get lured to one side of the board where they hopefully starve. Traps and trickery on the part of the Littles is the heart of the game. The Gobblers, in turn, must keep an eye to the long term and avoid being tempted into short-term gain. Also, there is a cool checker pattern for the corners that is often safe for Littles--see if you can discover it!

Ranking System: Differences between players in exposure to the game and natural ability is easily corrected by the following ranking system--based on the beauty of handicap stones and ranking in Go--to create an even game. A player has two ranks, Marauding and Scatter, representing ability with Gobblers and Littles respectively. A rank of 0 is a truly novice player. Higher ranks indicate greater ability. With each game played, the winner gains a rank of the appropriate type and the loser loses a rank. If this would put a rank below 0, leave the rank at 0. The ranks affect the number of Littles the Gobbler needs to eat in order to win. Add the Gobbler's Marauding and subtract the Little's Scatter to the Gobbler's base objective of eating more than forty Littles to determine the threshold for the Gobbler's victory. So, a 8M/10S player playing the Gobblers against a 13M/12S player would need to eat more than 40 + 8 - 12 = 36 Littles to win. In this example, if the Littles won, the second player would go up a rank in Scatter and the first player would lose a rank in Marauding.