Tonga

Tonga

Designer: Grupo de los Lunes
Publisher: About.com: 2004 Shared Pieces Game Design Competition
Type: Domino/Tile
Status: Free
Available from: http://boardgames.about.com/od/sharedpieces/a/tonga.htm

Tonga is played by two players, black and white, on a 9x9 board.

Pieces are dominoes of two kinds: half black-half white dominoes, and half black-half white diagonal dominoes (that is, a black square diagonally attached to a white square by a corner). All pieces belong to a common pool. (You may use black and white checker pieces to simulate our special domino set.)

Each player in turn places a piece on any vacant place. Black plays first. As the game goes on, islands of each color will become apparent. A black island is a group of solidly connected black squares, each being orthogonally adjacent to at least one neighbor black square. White islands are similar groups of white squares.

The game stops when there is no room for a new piece. At this time, each player totals the squares of his three biggest isles. The winner is the one with the highest total.

An entry into the About.com: 2004 Shared Pieces Game Design Competition.