BRY

A board game with the strategy of chess and the simplicity of checkers.

Players have 3 colors to choose from: blue, red & yellow (BRY). Each player controls 9 pieces of their color: 3 square pieces, 3 hex pieces and 3 round pieces. Printed on each piece is the shape of the kind of opponents’ piece it can capture: square, hex or round.

Each player has one square piece that can capture opposing square pieces, one square piece that can capture opposing hex pieces and one square piece that can capture opposing round pieces. The same is true for hex pieces and round pieces.

The playing board is triangular shaped with 3 types of sections: 3 Nests (where pieces start the game), 3 Pens (where captured pieces go) and the Ring (a center section where the action takes place).

Pieces start the game in their nest and move directly to any empty space in the ring. They capture opponents’ pieces by moving straight-line to, and replacing, the captured piece in its space. The captured piece is sent to the Pen.

When a piece moves into capture position on an opponent’s piece, prior to capturing it, it can “freeze” the opposing piece by flipping it over. The flipped piece is frozen (cannot move) for one turn.

There a 3 types of normal moves: Nest-to-Ring (described above), swapping a piece from the Pen with a piece in the Ring and moving a piece inside the Ring.

There is one special moved called a “release”, which can occur in a 3-player game if a player is getting “ganged up on” or it can be considered a handicap move for beginning players. It is made by moving a previously captured piece from the Pen back to its nest to return to play.

The winner of the game is the last player to have at least one un-captured piece remaining, after all opponents’ pieces have been captured and placed in their Pen.

The symmetry of the game board combines with a simple game-play routine, creating several layers of strategy with respect to piece positioning and piece selection.