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Mixtour

A stacking game for 2 players by Dieter Stein.

Material

Fig. 1 – Mixtour board and playing pieces.

• Square board with 5 × 5 spaces
• A sufficient amount (e.g. 2 × 25) of stackable pieces (white and blue discs)

Objective

Players try to build stacks, at least 5 discs high, with a disc of their own color on top.

Preparation

The board is empty at the beginning.

Players decide on the colors they play. White starts, then players take turns.

Play

Note: In the following, a single disc can also be referred to as a stack (i.e. a stack of height 1).

Enter a Disc

A player places a new disc of his own color on any empty space on the board.

Move a Stack

A player chooses a stack and moves one or more discs from there.

• Discs move orthogonally or diagonally in straight lines.
• Discs are always taken from the top of a stack.
• Stacks may be split at any level. Remaining discs stay behind.
• Players may move discs of any(!) color. It is possible to move single enemy discs or stacks with an enemy disc on top.
• It is not allowed to take back the last move of the opponent (if such a move is available at all).
• Stacks may not jump over occupied spaces.
• The move must end on another stack, discs are placed on top of the receiver stack.
• Stacks may have any size.
• Stacks of height 5 (or larger) are removed from the board and score 1 point (see below).

And, most important:

• The height of the receiver stack determines the exact distance from where the stack can be reached.

Note:

• The top piece does not determine ownership of a stack when it comes to move options.
• It is not the height of the moving stack that determines the range of a move! It is the receiver stack (i.e. its height) that defines it.

Examples

Fig. 2 – The disc on e4 can move 3 spaces onto the 3-stack on b4. The stack on e1 cannot reach b4 because it is blocked by d2 and c3.

Fig. 3 – The disc on b2 is within reach of all adjacent stacks because it is a stack of height 1.

End of the Game

When a player builds a stack of height 5 (or larger), this stack is removed from the board, the discs are put back to the reserve and the player who owned the top disc of that stack, scores 1 point.

Generally, 5 points are needed to win a game (“5” is the number of Mixtour), but players can agree upon any other number at the beginning of the game.

Note: It is possible (although very rare) that players end up in an arrangement of single discs in which one additional disc skips endlessly in a loop. If really none of the players is willing to break out of this situation, they should declare the game drawn. Please note, that in combinations of stacks larger than 1 this situation is not likely to occur, because scoring moves will be available.