Desdemona rules

Desdemona is played on a 10×10 with this setup:

A B C D E F G H I J 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 8 9 9 10 10 A B C D E F G H I J
A B C D E F G H I J 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 8 9 9 10 10 A B C D E F G H I J

Regular "desdemona" shown to the left, "cassio" variant to the right (see further below).

There are two types of units in Desdemona:

  • A can move and shoot out a of the same colour.
  • A will never move, but can be flipped to become the opponent colour. There are also neutral , these cannot be flipped.

On their turn a player will do two things in order:

  1. First they one of their orthodiagonally across any number of empty squares (like a chess queen)
  2. Now the moved will in one of these ways:
    • shoot a neutral orthodiagonally across any number of empty squares (just like in Amazons), but not onto a border space
    • Shoot an own-coloured across any number of enemy , landing on an empty square behind them. This flips all the jumped (sort of like in Othello).

On the very first turn of the game Player 1 will only and not .

The game ends when a player is unable to move, and the winner is whoever has the most !

Here a1 shoots out d4 (left)...

A B C D E 1 2
A B C D E 1 2

...which captures a2 and a3 (right).

Besides the regular rules there is a "cassio" variant, which changes two rules for when you :

  • You always a neutral , even when firing to flip
  • There is no board perimeter rule