Concealment Of Pieces During Play

Basic Notions

I just read Player Of Games for the first time. There was a game in it that involved placing tokens in spheres, which were your playing pieces. The tokens in the spheres dictated their values and (perhaps) their abilities. I think that Icehouse pieces could be used to create a similar effect.

Large opaque (Black and White) Icehouse pieces can be used to cover nests of medium and small pieces.

Can large paper Icehouse pieces completely cover large plastic Icehouse pieces? If so, a truly amazing array of concealed 3-piece nest combinations becomes available.

Imagine a game played on a checkerboard. It's a 2 or 4-player game. Each player has 5 large opaque pieces capped with small pieces of a color unique to that player (ex: black capped with red or white capped with cyan) to act as "sheaths". Each player has a corner. At the start of the game, you assemble five medium small nests, cover them with your sheath, and place them in your corner. Unless one of your moves is challenges during the game, or your piece is captured, this is the last time you'll get to look at your nests, so memorize them carefully.

During the game, any sheathed piece can move to an adjacent space. If a piece is in that space, that piece is captured (Perhaps there's some kind of conflict resolution system...). The colors and sizes of the sheathed pieces can grant additional powers. Any sheathed piece can attempt any special power move, but any player can challenge the move. If a move is challenged, the nest inside the sheathed piece must be revealed to all players. If the move was legal for that piece, the challenging player loses a game point (or a piece?) to the challenged player. If the challenger was correct, then the move does not happen, the challenged player's turn is over, and the challenged player loses a game point (or a piece?) to the challenger.

Possible powers:

• Red: Attack at range. 1 Pip = the four orthoganally adjacent squares. 2 Pips = the eight adjacent squares. 3 Pips = ???
• Yellow: Movement. 1 Pip = may move diagonally as well as orthoganally. 2 Pips = May move like a chess knight. 3 Pips = May move twice, in any combination of orthoganal or diagonal moves.
• Blue: ???
• Green: ???

Alternate power list:

• Red = Orthogonal move. 1 Pip = Two spaces. 2 Pips = Three spaces. 3 Pips = 4 spaces.
• Green = Diagonal move. 1 Pip = 1 space. 2 Pips = Two spaces. 3 PIps = 3 spaces.
• Yellow = Special moves. 1 Pip = Phasing (moves through other pieces) 2 Pips = Knight's move 3 Pips = Swap positions with any allied piece.
• Green = Defense. When attacked, roll a die and check the result. If the result is (x) or greater, the attacker is captured instead of this piece. 1 Pip = (x)=6. 2 Pips = (x)=4. 3 Pips = (x)=2

Finished Icehouse Games Employing Concealment Of Pieces

Nate Straight has just added a game Martian Stratego to the Existing Games list that uses some of the very ideas discussed on this page.