Six games to dethrone Checkers
Has Checkers overstayed its welcome? These six games offer fresh perspectives on reasonably light, abstract two-player gaming.
Ah, you’re here! I’m on vacation at the moment, but I’ve prepared this newsletter for you ahead of time. (Here’s a secret: I prepare them all ahead of time. That’s why they always go out Wednesday morning. I’m not waking up at 4 a.m. to write a newsletter. Well, not often.)
Checkers is one of those enduring games in the U.S., and it’s a game that I played repeatedly from basically elementary school forward. The premise is simple: Move a piece diagonally and forward, hop over your opponent’s pieces if you can, and try to reach the other side to upgrade your piece into one that can also move backward. (“King me!” is a classic schoolroom shout if I’ve ever heard one.) Knock out your opponent’s pieces to win. Simple enough.
Unlike many games in this series I’ve termed Replacing the Classics, Checkers is a game that is enduring but widely thought of as a game that’s replaced by another game already. Unfortunately, that game is Chess, which we’ll get to at some point in this newsletter. It’s a tough position for Checkers to be in, because it’s basically painted as a child’s game permanently. There’s certainly some truth to that, but there’s more to it, Checkers fills an important role, because it’s easy to teach and easy to learn. Still, it needs replacing.
So, here we are. Some two-player abstract games that can replace Checkers on your shelf. It’ll be a pretty short one today, I think, since, you know. I’m on vacation.
Hokito is basically a game about building the best and biggest stacks against your opponent. In this one, which is laid out on a classic grid, you have three types of pieces which allow you to move between one and three spaces. You can stack single pieces on single pieces, and you can stack stacks on other stacks. (Stacks on stacks on anyway you get the picture) It’s neat, but is it my Checkers-killer? Probably not, as I think it veers just a little more complicated than that one. It’s probably up your alley if you’re reading this, but an eight-year-old kid? I dunno, it honestly depends on your kid. Maybe they’ll love it. Designed by Claude Leroy, published by Cosmoludo.
Cosmoludo also published Yoxii, which is a bit of a travesty of a name if we’re being totally honest. So many of these games have difficult names, but this is the only one that could easily be confused for a strangely pronounced “Yahtzee.” Anyway, this is a game in which you’re moving a piece around the board aiming to trap it with your tiles, which have the letters (you guessed it) Y, O, X, and II on them. They’re worth points based on the number of lines present — so O is worth one point, II is worth two, Y is worth three, and X is worth four. You’ll earn those points if, when the token is totally trapped and cannot move, you have tiles surrounding it. Neat game. Weird name. Designed by Jérémy Partinico, published by Cosmoludo.
DVONN — the names! — is not a game about getting the tables. It’s a game about separating your opponent’s pieces on a hexagonal grid from these red tokens that are placed in a few areas across the board. Break that connection and the now-disconnected pieces just vanish, and you won’t get any points for them. Designed by Kris Burm, published by HUCH!
Donuts is a game with a real name. Amazing. It’s a nice little game about inserting yourself into the middle of your opponent’s placed donuts, at which point, you take them over. It’s a bit like if raspberry jam in a donut turned the whole donut into raspberry jam. Take over your opponent’s pieces and place five of your pieces in a row and you’ll win. Simple enough. Designed by Bruno Cathala, published by Funforge.
Lacuna is perhaps the least Checkersy of these games — there’s no grid (the play area is just one big circle) and there’s not much in the way of that classic Checkers feel. But Lacuna is very easy to teach, and it’s easy to teach after you’ve learned it, even if you don’t have a rulebook on hand. It’s also a two-player abstract game, so I’m not totally off-base here. Lacuna is a game in which you’ll shake out the contents (flowers) of the game cylinder (yeah, a cylinder — I don’t know quite how I feel about it, given its reluctance to fit neatly on my shelves, but it does look appealing) on to a game mat, then you’ll take turns placing your pieces between matching flowers and collecting them. The flowers that remain afterward go to the player who has a piece closer. It’s a good bit of fun. Designed by Mark Gerrits, published by CMYK.
boop. is a little game about cats pushing each other off of beds. If you line up three kittens, they grow up into cats. If you line up three cats, you win. The trouble is that when you place a kitten or cat, they push each other around the board, whether they’re your felines or not. It’s thus a little bit of a tricky game — can you manage to push your cats in such a way that you knock your opponents off the board, hampering their progress? Designed by Scott Brady, published by Smirk & Dagger Games.
There you have it! Six games that can hop over Checkers on your shelf. Are they all perfect games? Yes. I think so. (OK — I don’t actually think so. They’re all good! A perfect game — now that’s a rare find.) Are they all better than Checkers? I think so, but maybe you love Checkers. I wouldn’t pretend to speak for you. Most of these — save Lacuna, really — are available to try on Board Game Arena, so please feel free to invite me to a match with any of these (or all of them!) — my username’s moonty over there.
Alright, well, I’ll see you next week, yeah? Same time, same place? I hope you’re well.
Next week: More great trick-takers!