L-game

L-game

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History

L-game's humble beginnings started during a dinner conversation between Edward de Bono and mathematician Professor Littlewood. Both agreed that chess was difficult because of its complexity and many pieces. De Bono, who loves to play games but hates to focus on many pieces, took up the challenge to create a game that required skill, yet was also fun and simple to play. The result was L-game. There are 2,296 unique positions under symmetry (18,268 if redundant positions under symmetry are counted).

The Board

L-game is played on a four-row, four-column grid.

The Pieces

There are four pieces — a blue L-piece, a red L-piece, and two 1-by-1 neutral pieces. Each L-piece covers four cells of the grid at any time. One player controls the blue L-piece and the other player controls the red L-piece. Both players control the two neutral pieces. At the beginning of the game, the pieces are arranged on the board as follows:

a

Rules

To move: Pick up your L-piece and place it in a different way on the board. The L-piece can be rotated and flipped. The L-piece should be moved so that it covers at least one cell of the grid that was not covered by it immediately before it was picked up. Then, you may optionally move one of the neutral pieces to a different location on the board. Pieces are not allowed to overlap other pieces and may not hang off the side of the board. You may not move a piece on top of another piece.

To win: A player wins when their opponent is unable to move their L-piece on their turn.

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Variants

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