Akron

• Board
• Objective
• Connections
• Play
  
• External Links

Akron is played on a board with a square grid of 8x8 holes:

The goal of Akron is to form a chain of stones of your color touching each other and linking the opposite edges of the board marked by your color after your opponent has moved.  It means that the player's chain must still connect both of his sides after the opponent's replying move. A corner is considered to be part of both adjoining edges.

Two stones touch each other in two cases:

• they are orthogonally adjacent to each other
• one stone rests diagonally above the second one and is supported by the second stone.

Black stones "B" and "C" touch each other sincethey are orthogonally adjacent to each other.
Black stones "A" and "B" touch each other because "A" rests diagonally above "B" and is supported by "B".
Black stones "C" and "D" does not touch each other.

Two stones are connected if one can be reached from the other through a series of touching same-coloured pieces. However,if a connection crosses over an opponent’s connection at any point then the uppermost connection prevails; the lower connection is cut until the upper one is removed.

Touching black stones "A" and "B" cut the connection between white stones "C" and "D"

The game begins with an empty board.

Each player has an allocated color: Black or White.

Starting with Black, players take turns doing one of the following actions:

• A player can place a single stone of their color in any empty hole directly on the board (i.e. not stacked on other stones).
• A player may move one of his stones already on the board to an empty valid spot that touches any of the stones, which were connected to the moving stone before the move. A valid spot is either a hole directly on the board or supported by four adjacent stones of either color before, during and after the move. A supporting stone can be moved if exactly one stone rests directly upon it from the level above. The upper stone drops down to fill the gap; there may be a cascade effect if it in turn supports a stone above, etc. The moving stone may step up or down one or more levels per move, but it may not take the place of a dropping stone or use a stone that has dropped this turn as a support stone. Below are several examples:

The white stone "A" can move to any of the spots marked with a red dot.		After the move.
The white stone "A" can move to any of the spots marked with a red dot.		After the move.
The black stone "A" can move to any of the spots marked with a red dot. Note, that this black stone supports a single white stone that will fall down after moving "A".		After the move

• Akron rules and history on Cameron Browne's homepage.