doubles a circlerim and letter: whose piecenumber: its points
Scores
What happened
The rules
Set up. Play on the red rows with 2 players, add the green rows for 3, and the blue row for 4. Each player takes their eight quarter-circle pieces. Toss a coin to see who starts.
Pieces. A piece fills one square and faces one of its four corners. Its pattern sets its points: crosshatched 1, dotted 2, plain 3, black 4.
A turn. Roll the die (d4) first. Then arrange one piece: add one of yours to an empty square, turn any piece on the board, yours or another player's, or remove one. A piece you add or turn goes round as many corners as the die shows; a 4 turns it full circle.
Three quarters. Three pieces in three of the four squares around one shared corner, each facing that corner, make a 3/4 circle. All three must have the same pattern. They can belong to anyone.
Remove. To remove a quadrant, place a quadrant with the same pattern on it. Take both (without adding the points that both pieces have). A player can remove a piece only three times in a game.
Score. The player who completes the 3/4 circle removes the pieces from the board and takes as many points as the constituent pieces. If one of its quadrants is on a yellow square, the score is doubled.
Keep the board. Avoid emptying the board: the player whose move empties it loses 10 points.
Time. Each move has to be made in 20 s. Use a mobile to keep time.
Win. The player with 25 points first wins.
How this version reads the rules
A new piece is set down as the pieces are printed, facing the lower-right corner of its square. It then goes round clockwise as many corners as the die shows: 1 faces lower-left, 2 upper-left, 3 upper-right, and 4 brings it full circle back to lower-right. You choose the square and the pattern; the die chooses the corner.
Turning is always clockwise. A 4 turns a piece full circle, so it ends where it began; that still counts as your action.
A 3/4 circle can only form round a corner shared by four squares of the rows in play. Rows not in play are shown greyed and hatched, and take no pieces.
The pieces of a completed circle go back to their owners' hands and can be played again.
A remove does not use the die. You cover any piece, your own or another player's, with a piece of the same pattern from your hand, and both come off. The covered piece goes back to its owner and yours goes back to you. Nobody scores. It uses one of your three removes.
The 10-point penalty falls on whoever's move leaves the board empty, whether by a circle or a remove; a circle's points are added first. Scores can go below zero.
The win is checked after every move, once its points and any penalty are counted: the first to reach 25 or more wins at once.
The timer is on, as the rules ask; the table can turn it off before starting. With it on, the 20 seconds start when a person's turn starts, die roll included. If they run out, the turn passes with no action. Computer players are not timed.
Every turn has a legal action, so there is no rule for passing: when the board holds a piece it can be turned, and when it is empty every piece is back in hand and can be added.
If nobody can make a remove, now or after more pieces are added, and no corner can get three pieces of one pattern round it from the pieces there, its empty squares and the pieces in hand, no circle can ever be made again. The game then ends and the highest score wins (shared on a tie).
Hands are open, as on a table: everyone can see everyone's pieces.
The coin toss picks the first player at random; play then goes round in seat order: Blue, Yellow, Graphite, White.