Description

INTRODUCTION Clump is a two-player game played on a square board of any even size, initially filled with red and blue stones interspersed in a checkerboard pattern. Mark Steere designed Clump in August 2023.

OBJECT Red must form a path of red stones (interconnected via horizontal or vertical adjacencies, or both) connecting the two red sides of the board. Diagonal adjacencies are irrelevant in Clump. Blue must form a path of blue checkers connecting the two blue sides of the board.

PLAY Players take turns swapping one of their stones with an orthogonally adjacent enemy stone (subject to swap conditions described below), one swap per turn, starting with Red. Players will always have a swap available. Passing is not allowed.

GROUP A group here is a monocolored, orthogonally interconnected group of stones. Groups can morph without any change in size.

1. At least one of the swapped stones must be part of a larger group after the swap than it was before the swap.

1. The largest group so formed must be larger than the largest group that would be diminished by the swap. (If no groups are diminished, only condition 1 applies.)