Gekitai a neat fit on 6x6

I recently posed a question with the Abstract Nation on Facebook asking what were three games players preferred on an 8x8 checkerboard.

Not surprisingly there was a lot of commonality in answers and IMHO a few gems missed.

So over the coming weeks I’ll offer a few short reviews of what I see as the best games to be played on an 8x8 checkerboard with the added constraint you have only two sets of 24 pieces – basically you buy two matching common checker sets.

This is #19.

While using our board as a 6x6 adds only a few viable options to ‘Project 8x8 & 48’ Gekitai, a 2020 design from Scott Brady is one of them.

In Gekitai each player has eight coloured markers and takes turns placing them anywhere on any open space on the board.

When placed, a marker pushes all adjacent pieces outwards one space if there is an open space for it to move to. If the space is occupied then it cannot move. Pieces may be pushed off the board. Pieces shoved off the board are returned to the player.

The first player to either line up three of their pieces in a row at the end of their turn -- after pushing -- or having their eight pieces on the board – again after the push action -- wins.

The game is super simple, and plays quickly, and still maintains some interest in terms of depth – planning is important – while also being fun.

There is a second version of Gekitai, but it requires additional coloured pieces so falls outside the parametres of ‘The Project’ although it is marginally a better game.