Royal edge escape

Play an asymmetric escape game using straight-line slides and sandwich captures.

Shape & spatial thinking · Logic & rule checking

Players

2 players

Time

12–20 minutes

Materials and quantities

One 7×7 grid, one K, four D and eight A large paper pieces.

One pair shares the role map; use a separate observer only if both agree.

Prepare

Put K at D4 and defenders D at C4, E4, D3 and D5. Attackers A occupy D1, D2, A4, B4, F4, G4, D6 and D7. One player controls K and the four defenders; the other controls all attackers. Every square, including D4, is ordinary ground. This is our small teaching layout of an escape-and-sandwich mechanism, not a reconstruction of one historical tafl ruleset.

Play

The defending player moves first. Slide one own piece any positive distance horizontally or vertically through empty squares; do not jump or move diagonally. After the slide, remove each adjacent enemy with another own piece immediately beyond it on the same line. Only the player who just moved captures. K counts as a defender for forming a sandwich and is captured by the same two-sided rule. A board edge is not a friendly piece.

Worked example

The checked capture diagram has A at B3, D at C3 and a second A sliding from F3 to D3. D at C3 is then removed because B3 and D3 are its immediate opposite neighbours. For a counterexample, put A at B3 and D at D3, with another A landing at E3: the gap at C3 prevents a sandwich. Pieces merely sharing a row are not necessarily adjacent.

Finish and check

K wins immediately on reaching any edge square by a legal slide. Attackers win when they capture K. If a player has no legal slide, that player loses. Stop after forty complete pairs of turns with neither goal reached and record a draw; the limit is a session rule, not a solved-game claim. Check an edge arrival before attempting to apply a later hypothetical capture. Pieces that merely begin between enemies are not removed until a new opponent move actually completes a sandwich.

Adaptation and practical limits

The first round may use an adult to check clear paths and adjacency. Mark roles with letters as well as colours. Players may discuss the small capture diagram separately before starting the full position. Do not add special throne, corner or four-sided-king rules from another game during this version; they change the stated mechanism. A hand-drawn grid and labelled paper squares work without a printer.

Free alternatives: Use paper or clean reused cardboard and a pencil. Copy the supplied diagrams and tables by hand; no specialist kit or purchase is needed.

Printable materials

Preview at 100% scale, with browser headers and footers off. Cut with suitable help. Keep host keys separate. This is a manual tabletop kit, not an online opponent, automatic judge or solver.