Designed by: Kris Burm
YINSH is an abstract game for two, played over three to five rounds. Players play white or black, and begin the game by adding five rings to the board in spots of their choosing.
Then each turn is very simple. You place a marker in your colour (they’re double-sided) into one of your rings and – leaving the marker where it is – move the ring in question along a straight line. You can go as far as you like along empty intersections. You can also jump over a marker, or even a row of markers, but must stop at the first empty intersection having done so (you can also travel empty spaces and then jump). But any markers you jump over will flip to their opposing side, very much like Othello, so there’s a tactical battle for control playing out: you want markers to be your-side-up, because goal is to get five markers of your own colour in a line. Do this, and you win the round: remove the winning markers, and one of your own rings, and then the next round instantly begins – there’s no resetting at all, and winning a round can often be disadvantageous toward winning the next one, as it means you’re down both a ring and some presence on the board.
As soon as either player wins a third round and gathers a third ring, they win the game.
It's a battle for control, so the experience is fairly combative!
Low to moderate. Although YINSH can engender moments where someone agonises, they're less prevalent than in something like chess.
See above... the rules are so, so simple it's nearly glorious. But winning is a different matter.
Well, you need to like what YINSH offers, which is a strictly two-player experience of abstracted, tactical warfare. There's no randomness or variable factors other than the players' input. But if that itch needs scratching, YINSH will scratch it better than most.
Sam says
Strangely, although I would not describe myself as a big fan of abstracts, I've had some of my best experiences with them in terms of pure play. War Chest, Tak, Chess, Aton... with the theme and cosmetics more or less stripped away, they're all about the mental jousting. And YINSH is possibly the most accessible of the lot; almost as simple as its ancestor Othello in terms of rules (though you're making rows, it bears little resemblance to Connect Four), but with enough added nuance and variation to feel there's more control, and at the same time more possibility for reversals of fortune, particularly with the deft touch of winning a round putting you at a momentary disadvantage. True, there aren't many laughs here, but that's not what YINSH was going for - it offers a battle of wits, and in that regard it's one of the best.