Beautiful and Tricky

Jake, Tommy, and Chris played a couple games of the 3-player version of Ido.

Ido is a clever game, with elements of many others, but with an incredible twist -- the game board CHANGES, as players see fit.

Pieces can only step on places that are the same size as the piece they are moving -- as the grid changes, the pieces switch between being movable, and immovable.

As I've browsed around, I've read many bad reviews of this game, some of them suggesting that the rules are incomplete and difficult. This is just WRONG. On each turn, the current player has a choice of 3 moves -- (1) introduce a new piece onto a legal space, (2) shift the grid to change the board, or (3) move your current pieces a number equal to the number of pieces on the board.

Once you've played the game through a time or two, you get some of the flow. It is a wonderful abstract strategy game -- everyone starts with the same pieces, and the shifting of the board adds a strategy unlike any other game I've ever played.

It's a great game -- if you don't get that, you haven't tried hard enough. And honestly, you don't have to try that hard -- there's a lot of common sense in regards to the rules.

The first time I played (Me, Jay, and Don), we had a couple questions. As we were searching for a possible answer in the rules, we came up with a logical conclusion, and the rules always ended up supporting that result.

Let's see how the games went:

Game 1: Jake got a piece off the board first. Tommy quickly followed, with Chris right after. Tommy got his next piece off. Then Jake did.

Tommy got his third piece off -- Tommy wins!! Chris only had one piece off, Jake had 2.

Game 2: Chris got his first piece off first. Jake got a piece off quick after that, and Tommy Next. Chris got his next 2 pieces off before anyone else got one off. Chris wins! Jake and Tommy each only had one piece off.