Stawvs

From Looney Pyramid Games Wiki
Stawvs
Designed by Russ Williams
An abstract strategy game similar to Amazons with Volcano scoring.
:Players Players: 2 - 4
:Time Length: Medium?
:Complexity Complexity: Low
Trios per color: 5
Number of colors: 4
Pyramid trios:
Monochr. stashes: 4
Five-color sets: 5
- - - - - - Other equipment - - - - - -
8x8 Chessboard; 3 caps or rings per player
Setup time: 2 minutes
Playing time: 15 minutes - 30 minutes
Strategy depth: Medium
Random chance: None
Game mechanics: Movement, Removal
Theme: None
BGG Link: Stawvs
Status: Complete (v1.0), Year released: 2011

Stawvs is a pure abstract strategy game for 2-4 players. The board begins full of randomly distributed pyramids. In turn, players move their own pieces and claim pyramids to score.

Components[edit | edit source]

  • 60 pyramids: 4 stashes of 4 different colors

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  • 3 pawns for each player. These could be small pyramids (if you have pyramids in additional colors) or 3 same-color pipe cleaner rings placed as caps on the pyramids, or 3 same-denomination coins to place in the squares beside pyramids, etc. (Regardless of the physical implementation, these will be called "caps" from now on.)

::S::S::S ::S::S::S

  • 8x8 chessboard

:8by8

Setup[edit | edit source]

Put the 60 pyramids randomly or arbitrarily on the board, one per space, with 4 empty spaces. By default, the 4 empty spaces should be the outside corners. By mutual consent, the 4 empty spaces could be the 4 innermost squares, or random/arbitrary.

 x = random pyramid
 . = empty square

. x x x x x x .   x x x x x x x x
x x x x x x x x   x x x x x x x x
x x x x x x x x   x x x x x x x x
x x x x x x x x   x x x . . x x x
x x x x x x x x   x x x . . x x x
x x x x x x x x   x x x x x x x x
x x x x x x x x   x x x x x x x x
. x x x x x x .   x x x x x x x x
(default setup)    (center hole)


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::SPU ::SPU ::MPU ::LPU ::MPU ::LPU ::SPU ::MPU
::SPU ::LPU ::MPU ::MPU ::SPU ::LPU ::MPU ::LPU
::SPU ::SPU ::MPU ::LPU ::SPU ::SPU ::SPU ::MPU
::MPU ::LPU ::SPU ::MPU ::SPU ::LPU

Example setup with gaps in corners

Initial Placement Turns[edit | edit source]

Pick a starting player. Turns will go clockwise. In turn the players put one of their caps onto an uncapped pyramid, until every cap is placed.

Movement Turns[edit | edit source]

Turns continue in clockwise order. On their turn, a player moves one of their caps in a straight line in any of the 8 directions, orthogonally or diagonally, as far as desired, to a new space with a pyramid.

All spaces between the start and end spaces must have a pyramid and not have a cap. I.e. empty spaces and caps block movement.

After moving, the player claims an uncapped pyramid that is accessible in a straight line in any of the 8 directions from the newly occupied space. As with movement, empty spaces and cap are blocking, so a pyramid on the other side of an empty space or cap cannot be claimed. The sizes and colors of pyramids do not affect cap movement or claiming of pyramids. The claimed pyramid is removed from the board and set in front of the player.

A player must move if possible. If a player has no possible move, that player passes, but the other players continue to play.

Game End[edit | edit source]

When all players have passed, all players collect the 3 pyramids under their caps. It is possible that not all pyramids are claimed.

Arrange collected pyramids into trees and calculate points:

  • Each tree of 3 same-color pieces is worth 7 points.
  • Each other tree (not of same-color pieces) is worth 5 points.
  • Each other piece (not in a tree) is worth 1 point.

Whoever has the most points wins. There is no tie-breaker.

Variants[edit | edit source]

1. Simpler captures: you must remove the pyramid from which your cap moved, instead of a pyramid in any line from your cap's new location. This makes the game less like Amazons and more like Hey! That's My Fish. It may be a good beginner's variant.

2. Final pyramids not captured: you only remove pyramids after moving, so at the end of the game, players do not collect the 3 pyramids under their caps.

3. In a four-player game, each player has only 2 caps.

Acknowledgements[edit | edit source]

Thanks to Amazons by Walter Zamkauskas, Hey! That's My Fish by Günter Cornett & Alvydas Jakeliunas, and Volcano by Kristin Looney, which were all obvious inspirations. Thanks to various friends and strangers for playtesting what was informally called "Hej! To moja piramida!" (Hey! That's my pyramid!) for a long time.


License[edit | edit source]

http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/88x31.png
This work is distributed by Russ Williams under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.