HOBBES

Copyright (c) 2002 Dan Troyka

Hobbes is played on a 5x5 square board with the following setup:

 

TURN - On each turn, each player moves his King to an adjacent (orthogonal or diagonal) empty cell any number of times. After that, he must capture the opponent King (if possible) or push or pull an adjacent orthogonal soldier. A push/pull is valid if the other cell (where the King goes if it is a pull, or the soldier goes if it is a push) is empty GOAL - A player wins if he captures the opponent King.

 

An example Blue's turn. He can move his King to d2 and then push soldier c2 to b2. Red only has one possible move - to push soldier c1 to d1. Now, Blue can capture the Red King and win.

Some words from the author: Hobbes is named after Thomas Hobbes, a 17th-century British philosopher who argued that power naturally gravitates to a single absolute Monarch. The game was invented in 1998 and inspired by Robert Kraus' Neutron. Basic strategy consists of forcing the enemy Monarch to breach the Front so that it can be captured on the next turn, or collapsing the Front around the Monarch until it is crushed.  Hobbes was conceived as a 5x5 game and is most entertaining at that size. The 5x5 version can almost certainly be solved and I would welcome any formal proof. I have worked out an informal solution using Zillions that gives the first player a win in 19 moves. The first player can be handicapped by prohibiting a forward opening move.

There is a ZRF to play Hobbes with Zillions.