LIBERO

Copyright (c) 1984 Alfred Schnitger

This game, a kind of abstract football, is played on the following board with the following setup:

There's also a special piece, the ball, initially off board.

  • GOAL CELLS - The three leftmost (rightmost) cells in the board. Each player owns the cells of his side.
  • TURN -  On each turn, each player may (optionally) move one of his pieces and (optionally) move the ball as many times he wants (the move/pass order is irrelevant).
    • The pieces:
      • The libero slides (orthogonally or diagonally) over a line of empty cells.
      • The soldier slides diagonally over a line of empty cells.
      • The goalkeeper moves like the libero, except it cannot escape its area (the rectangle with 3 columns and 5 lines, around its initial position).
      • Any piece may be stacked with the ball.
    • The ball moves like the libero and may be passed from one friendly piece to another.
    • If a piece moves to an adjacent (orthogonal or diagonal) cell of an opponent piece with the ball, the moving piece gets the ball (and then, may pass it to a friendly piece).
    • No piece (including the ball) may jump or capture.
  • SCORE - When the ball moves into one of the opponent's goal cells, the player scores one point.
    • The first player that gets three points, achieves one set (resetting the points score to 0-0).
    • After each point, the pieces are placed in their initial setup.
    • The ball belongs to the player that lost the previous point, which is stacked on the soldier near the board center (I5 or L5 soldier).
    • At the beginning, the players decide who starts and that player stacks the ball over his center soldier (again I5 or L5).
  • GOAL - Wins the player that achieves two sets.
 
An example

Blue's turn. The ball is carried by the Blue soldier at q6 (the black soldier in the diagram).

Blue can score a point by passing the ball to the soldier at n9, then pass it to j9 which may move to [1] and finally move the ball to [2].

The cells marked [3] represent the blue goalkeeper moving zone.

I wish to thank Dieter Stein for translating me information about this game. I'm not sure about these rule set, especially the goalkeeper area.