Abalone Game

Abalone is a two-player abstract strategy board game. Players are represented by opposing black and white marbles on a hexagonal board with the objective of pushing six of the opponent's marbles off the edge of the board. The present version is made for iPad, and the players shoud stay on the opposite short sides of the iPad, in front of each other. One player gets the black marbles and the second the white ones. The board consists of 61 hexagonal cells. Each player has 14 marbles that rest in the spaces and are initially automatically arranged as the game begins. The players take turns with the black marbles moving first. For each move, a player moves a straight line of one, two or three marbles of one color one space in one of six directions. The move can be either broadside / arrow-like (parallel to the line of marbles) or in-line / in a line (serial in respect to the line of marbles). The marbles should be moved one at a time, dragging them with a finger, and dropping them on the destination cells. If the move of two or three is longitudinal, i.e. in the same direction of the marble sequence, the leading piece must be moved first, followed by the second one, and (eventually) the tird one. After the moves are made, the player shoud confirm them, hitting the Confirm button, or cancel them, using the Undo button. A player can push their opponent's marbles (a "sumito") that are in a line to their own with an in-line move only. They can only push if the pushing line has more marbles than the pushed line (three can push one or two; two can push one). Marbles must be pushed to an empty space (i.e. not blocked by a marble) or off the board. The winner is the first player to push six of the opponent's marbles off of the edge of the board. The dynamics of the basic game may have one serious flaw: it seems that a good but conservative player can set up their marbles in a defensive wedge and ward off all attacks indefinitely. An attacker may try to outflank this wedge or lure it into traps, but such advances are often more dangerous to the attacker than the defender. Thus, from the starting position, it takes little skill and no imagination to avoid losing, and nothing in the rules prevents games from being interminable. The first player who succedes pushing six opponent's mables off the edge of the board wins the game.