Description

Spruit is a solitaire game designed for play with a Shibumi set. It uses a 4×4-holed board, and balls in three colors (white, black, and red).

Aim: Score the most points you can, without losing the game by disconnecting a white or a black the others of its kind.

Setup: The 4×4 board starts with the 16 base holes filled as shown to the right.
The game is played from the 3×3 level up. Empty the bag, and put 5 balls of each color (white, black, and red) into the bag.

Rules: Draw a ball from the bag, and add it to the pyramid according to these rules: When there are no free spaces on a level, you may place the ball on any edge point of the new level; otherwise, you must push a ball from the side with a new ball. White and black balls must end up touching others of their kind; red needn’t do this. If a white or black becomes stranded, you lose. You may not push balls off the pyramid.

Random Setup: Start with the two red balls in the corner, then put 11 white and 11 black in the bag. Spiral clockwise inward from one of the reds, drawing a ball from the bag and adding it to the board. Now spiral clockwise inward again from the same red, and each time you reach a white or black that is not touching any others of its kind, replace it with the other kind from the bag. (Apologies for the difficulty in replacing the center four!) Note: The base may thus contain more groups than just one white and one black.
After setup, dump the bag, and put the usual 5 white, 5 black, 5 red in the bag to start the game.
When playing with random setup, you should play several games in a row with the same setup, so you can really experience the setup.

Multi-player Solitaire: Any number of people can compete, as long as each person has a Shibumi set. If you do a random setup, everyone should copy one random setup, so everyone starts with the same base. If players can see each others’ pyramids, each player should draw randomly from her own bag during the game; if players cannot see each others’ pyramids, you can have one person draw from her bag the whole game, announcing the color drawn, and the other players simply pull out that color and place it. The latter allows for more pure competition, but the former is often more practical.