Halma game other name full#

Two players can take part, with 19 pieces each, starting in the larger marked areas in opposite corners of the board.ģ. The corners are marked out to aid placement of the pieces, as shown in the diagram.Ģ. Halma is played on a square board with sixteen rows of sixteen squares. As the game is neither a variant of checkers nor is it Chinese, this is a fine example of the irony of commercial marketing! In the United States this game became Chinese checkers. This had a star-shaped board, rather than the square board of halma, but the rules were largely unchanged. In 1892 another variant was published in Germany, called Stern-Halma. In 1948 a variant called grasshopper was published, allowing play with a standard draughts set. An 18th century gaming board marked out like a halma board suggests it may have earlier origins, but it was not until the 1880s that it was published and came to the attention of the wider world. The game of halma, whose name means 'jump' in Greek, is an entertaining product of the Victorian era. History of Halma, Grasshopper and Chinese Checkers

Halma game other name full#

For each game there is an entertaining history, full rules, and a discussion of strategy, all in more detail than you'll see on this site. That volume, available as a hardback or paperback, covers twelve games in depth. This game is featured in A Book of Historic Board Games, by Damian Gareth Walker.

Featured in A Book of Historic Board Games Pieces may jump over each other to speed up their progress, though there are no captures in the game. The object of the game is to get your pieces to the opposite corner of the board before your opponent(s) can do the same. If the dark player succeeds in moving all his checkers into the light house using the extra turn then the game ends in a draw.The game of halma, whose name means 'jump' in Greek, is an entertaining product of the Victorian era. Since the player with light checkers has the advantage of the first move the dark player gets one extra turn after the light player moves all his checkers to the dark house. One exception is made to this rule for balancing the game. When a player makes a move that results in all his checkers being located in the opponent's house the player wins. If the same checker can continue jumping over another checker it can do so (but doesn't have to).

A checker can jump over another checker (either the player's or the opponent's) standing on an adjacent cell if there is an empty cell in the same direction right after it.

The turn is passed to the opponent right after this kind of move. A checker can move to any adjacent unoccupied cell horizontally, vertically or diagonally.There are two variants of moving a checker: Players move alternately one checker per turn, starting with the player with the light checkers. The goal of the Halma is to move all of your own checkers from your own house to the opponent's house. The areas where the checkers are placed are called ' houses'. igGameCenter uses a 10x10 checkerboard.Įach player has 15 checkers ( dark and light) located in opposite corners of the board. The original Halma is played on a 16x16 checkerboard but other sizes can be used too. Halma (meaning 'jump' in Greek) is a two-player abstract board game invented in 1883 (or 1884) by George Howard Monks.