Designed by: John W. Mollett
Othello is an abstract game for two, made up of a board and a set of double-sided discs – black one side, white the other. The different colours represent either player, and your goal is to have the most discs on the board showing your colour.
Play begins with 4 discs in the centre of the board, two of each colour. On your turn, you add a disc – ‘your’ side up – adjacent to the discs already there. The disc you place must bracket an opponents disc/s – i.e. you add a disc to a line where somewhere along the line another disc of your colour is present. All opponent’s disc in-between get flipped to represent your colour.
If you cannot flip any discs, you miss that turn.
Play continues until neither player can go or the board is full, at which point the player with the most discs face-up in their own colour – wins.
The entire game is a battle, so the Take That factor is high.
Depends on who you're playing against, but the rules are simple.
Nothing to give you a headache.
It depends on your fondness for abstracts. There are games out there with far more variety, but Othello does reward strategic thinking and repeat visits will improve your game.
2-2
Players
8+
Years
15-30
Mins
Sam says
Strategically you're trying to get your pieces into the corners, as those spots really are key to victory. I have fond memories of playing this as a boy, but my tastes don't encompass that many abstract games any more. The fact Othello is still going - relatively - strong after many years show it has its fans though.