Kexxollaishd

By Revi Muharam Fadli

Introduction: Kexxollaishd(pronounced ‘cake-sliced’) is a two-player “pure”(perfect

information and no randomness) abstract strategy game “themed” around two cake
flavor factions(greentea vs taro) vying for domination over the golden field(which
represents profit).
Setup: Assemble the board according to the following image. Place the round cake
pieces in the appropriate starting places, with each player having 18 cakes each. The
player who most recently ate the matching cake flavor becomes the first player(or
choose randomly).

Figure 1. Board Assembly

Rules: The object of the game is to be the first to collect 16 points, or be unable to make
any legal move during your turn. Either of which immediately wins.

On each turn, the active player makes 4 moves, except for the first player's first turn,
which only has 2 moves(it is recommended to spell out the count of moves to make it
easier to remember the number of moves remaining within the turn).Pieces may only
move forward, obliquely forward, or obliquely backward, one space per move. Multiple
pieces cannot occupy the same space at the same time.
 Figure 2. Piece movement from player’s perspective

There are 2 ways to gain points. The first is to surround an enemy piece with at least 3 of
your pieces during your turn. Anytime this happens, you can ‘bank’ one of your
surrounding pieces, moving it into your scoring zone(outside the board), scoring one
point each. This still counts as part of the same move(again, it is advised to spell out the
current turn’s move count). Optionally, you may also, in addition(still part of the same
move), move the surrounded piece to where the banked piece used to be. If this results in
another instance of an opponent’s piece getting surrounded by yours, the process is
repeated, and still counts as part of the same move. Multiple bankings may happen at the
same time, if more than 1 enemy pieces are surrounded.

The second way is to make a connected group of 3 of your pieces that all touch the
enemy backline. Bank any one of them.

Variants: Moving the surrounded piece into where a banked piece used to be could
either be made mandatory, or disabled altogether.

Name: Kexxollaishd was named after games that inspired it; Kess(surrounding capture
method, multiple moves per turn), Hex(hex grid, and making different opening moves
meaningfully distinct via asymmetry), Onitama(alternate racing win condition),
Marsellais Chess(balancing first turn advantage by reducing first player moves),
YINSH(negative feedback effect to challenge the leading player while also giving
comeback opportunities to the losing one), and Dodo(getting stalemated means winning,
and enemy pieces in the middle might become alternative “finish lines”). The whimsical
cake “theming” emerged as a pun after mashing them together to produce a search
engine-optimized unique name.