Speed
Overview
The Speed is a two-player paper-and-pencil game of unknown origins that simulates a car race.

Board

The Speed is played on a randomly shaped board representing a ring road. There is a start line crossing the road at some place.

There are two players having a car: Blue and Green.

Initially the cars are placed on the start line as shown on the following picture:

 

Objective

The goal of the Speed game is to complete the lap (i.e. to go around the board and cross the start line).

When a player makes a move that results in completing the lap the player wins.

One exclusion is made to this rule for balancing the game. Since the player with the blue car has an advantage of the first move the player with the green car has one extra turn after the blue player completes the lap. If the green player succeeds in completing the lap using the extra turn then the game ends up with a draw.

 

Play

Players move alternatively, starting with the player controlling blue car. Initially the speed of each car is zero.

Before moving a car a player should either increase or decrease its speed by 1 (if the speed is 0 a player must increase the speed).

After changing the speed a player should move his car horizontally, vertically or diagonally exactly as many cells as the chosen speed.

A car cannot jump over opponent's car or move outside the board.

If a player has no legal moves with the increased speed but has available moves with the decreased speed then the player must decrease the speed of his car and use one of the available moves.

If a player has no legal moves both with the increased or decreased speed then the speed of his car is decreased and the player skips his turn.