The Games
Emergo
Designer: Christiaan Freeling, Ed van Zon
Publisher: MindSports
Type: Abstract
Status: Free
BGG entry:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/14438
Available at:
http://www.mindsports.net/Arena/Emergo/
We did not invent Emergo, we discovered it. It is for elimination games what Go is for territory games. Go players emphasize the self-explanatory character of the concept as one of the pillars of its greatness. Emergo players will eventually do the same. Emergo is not a Draughts variant and trying to see it as one will hamper one's understanding.
Emergo can be played on the 41 dark squares of a 9x9 checkered board with dark corners, with 2x12 men. The game is a joint effort by Ed van Zon, who got me interested in Lasca's way of capture in the first place, and me [Christiaan Freeling]. When I made the usual hexagonal translation, using exactly the same rules, I initially found the game incomparably more dramatic, and so did everybody at the games club 'Fanatic' at Twente University in Enschede, the Netherlands. Few cared for the square version after its introduction. Emergo became a hexagonal game overnight, and this hexversion has been played as 'Emergo' on a regular basis for many years at Fanatic.
However, as it turns out, the square game has been grossly undervalued. Though its tactical possibilities are not nearly as mindboggling as those found in HexEmergo, they nevertheless surpass those of Draughts.