Cephalopod
Overview
Cephalopod is a two-player abstract board game played on a 5x5 board using dice as pieces. This game was invented by Mark Steere in 2006.

Board

Cephalopod is played on a 5x5 board. One of the players has 24 dice of one color.  The other player has 24 dice of another color.

Object of the Game

The goal of Cephalopod is to occupy more board cells with your own dice than your opponent when the board is completely filled.

No draws are possible in Cephalopod.

Play

The game begins with an empty board.

Players take turns adding dice of their own color to the board, one die per turn.

If a die is placed horizontally or vertically adjacent to two or more dice of either color and the sum of the pip counts (number of spots on the top surface of a die) on some of these dice is six or less, then the currently played die must show this sum and the player must remove those adjacent dice from the board. Captured dice are returned to their owners.

If there are several such combinations of two or more adjacent dice whose sum is six or less then the player can choose any of them but he must remove some combination in any case.

If there are no such combinations then the currently played die must show a single pip.

Below are several examples:

The "orange" player can place a die showing "6" in the cell marked with a "?" and remove all three adjacent dice from the board. He can also place a die showing "4" and remove the "1" and the "3", or place a die showing "5" and remove the "2" and the "3", or place a die showing "3" and remove the "1" and the "2".
The "orange" player can only place a die showing "1" in cells where transparent dice are shown because there are no combinations of two or more adjacent stones whose sum is six or less.

 

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