Royal Carpet

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Designed by Don Green
For 2 players

Object:

Be the first player to get two Kings off the far edge of the board. This is done by laying down a carpet of friendly Checkers for the Kings to jump.

Pieces:

Players have two kinds of pieces, Kings (4) and Checkers (4).

Board:

8x8 Checker board.

Setup:

Black Kings start on squares A1, C1, F1, and H1. Red Kings start on squares A8, C8, F8, and H8. Checkers start the game off-board. Black moves first.

Movement and Capture:

Only one piece may be moved or introduced per turn. Checkers may be introduced onto any empty square. Alternatively, Checkers may move to any adjacent, empty square.

A King may only move by jumping (in any direction) over friendly Checkers or Kings, capturing as he goes. Captured Checkers may be reintroduced later, but Kings that are captured do not return to the game.

The mechanics of jumping are the same as in the game Checkers, except that Kings may jump off the far edge of the board, into the "endzone." For example, a Red King on C2 may jump over a Red checker on D1, landing in its endzone. This King is removed from play.

If a King has an opportunity to jump, he must jump, continuing until no more jumps are possible. So beware!

Winning:

Victory is achieved when a player has jumped two Kings into the endzone.

Player Notes from Don Green:

Royal Carpet is an attempt to create a game of tempo in which friendly pieces have both positive and negative synergies. Crafty players will block jumps and then unblock them later, forcing an enemy King to jump his royal brethren. For those so inclined, this game is fun to play with a backgammon doubling cube, held initially by the Red player.

Zillions of Games plays a terrible game of Royal Carpet, but it's fun to play over the Internet. The game code requires only one graphic in addition to the checkers graphics that come standard with Zillions. That graphic is a checkerboard with an endzone, which can be found at http://www.octi.net/royalcarpet.bmp, and should be placed into the same images directory as the rest of the checkers graphics. The Zillions code is at http://www.octi.net/royalcarpet.zrf.

Note from Erik Arneson: Octi (compare prices), also designed by Don Green, is a wonderful abstract game. If you enjoy games like Chess (compare prices) and Checkers (compare prices), it's well worth a purchase.