Room and Pillar

Room and Pillar is played on a Kōnane board. That is, a rectangular grid of pits that can hold one stone each. The grid can be any size, with at least one even dimension. The board is initially filled with a checkerboard pattern of black and white stones. Play The two players, Black and White, take turns removing a stone of their own color, one stone per turn, starting with Black. After the first removal, every subsequent removal must be orthogonally (horizontally or vertically) adjacent to an empty point. Additionally, your move must never create a 2x2 area of empty pits. Passing is not allowed. The goal is to be the last player to move. In other words, if you don’t have a move available, you lose. Room and Pillar uses the pie rule: White, on his first turn, has the option of switching colors and becoming Black, claiming the first move (removal) as his own, instead of removing a white stone.

Number of players: 2

Game duration: 4 mn

Complexity: 1 / 5