Smalltalk Ninja Board Games All the boards

Reversi

England, 1883 — the oldest game here with a named inventor and a disputed one.

Who moves first?

No account, no email, nothing to install. You get a link to send to whoever you want to play.

How to play

The board

Eight squares by eight, empty except for four discs already sitting in the middle.
Those four are set two of each colour, placed diagonally.

Placing a disc

On your turn you put one disc on an empty square.
It has to trap at least one straight line of enemy discs between the disc you place and another of your own.
A placement that traps nothing is not a legal move.

Turning discs

Every enemy disc in a trapped line turns over to your colour.
Lines run in all eight directions, diagonals included.
One move can trap lines in several directions at once, and all of them turn.
Nothing ever leaves this board. A disc you lose is still there, wearing the other colour.

When you cannot move

If you have no legal placement, your turn is skipped and your opponent plays again.
That is not a loss, and the game carries on until neither of you can move.

Winning

The game ends when neither player has a legal move, which is usually a full board.
Whoever has more discs showing their colour wins.
An equal count is a draw.

Which rules are these?

Reversi on an eight by eight board, with the four opening discs already placed.

Reversi and Othello are the same game under two names. Othello is a trademark and reversi is the older name, which is why this is what the board is called here.

There is one real difference between the oldest form of the game and the modern one, and this board takes the modern side of it.

The opening: The four centre discs are set for you. In the oldest reversi the players placed those first four themselves, anywhere in the middle four squares, which made the start of a game a small game of its own.

Everything after that is the same either way. A player with no legal move is skipped rather than losing, and the discs are counted at the end.

Reversi is the older, untrademarked name for the game usually sold as Othello.