Play

To start, Black places a black stone on an empty point. From then on, starting with White, the players take turns. On your turn, you must perform exactly one of the following actions:

• Drop: Select a 2x2 area including one or more empty points, such that no other 2x2 areas include all those empty points as well as at least another empty point. Then place a stone of your color on each empty point in the selected area.

• Flip: Replace the two enemy stones in a crosscut with stones of your color. A crosscut is a 2x2 area of the board containing two diagonally adjacent black stones and two diagonally adjacent white stones.

You win by completing a chain of orthogonally adjacent stones of your color touching the two opposite board edges of your color. Draws are not possible.

Variants

• Pie: To start, Black places between one and four black stones on different points of a 2x2 area of the board. The pie rule is used in order to make the game fair. This means White will have the option, on their first turn only, to change sides instead of making a regular move.

• Checkered: The game starts with the board fully covered with black and white pieces in a checkered pattern. On odd-sized boards, the two possible checkered setups may be used. If the pie rule is used, Black starts by replacing one or two white stones in a single crosscut with black stones. Otherwise, Black starts by replacing any white stone with a black stone.

• 2x2 checkered: Same as checkered, but the initial checkered pattern is made of 2x2 blocks of same-color stones.

—description from the designer