Description

In Matobo – originally demonstrated under the name Säulen der Macht, or "Pillars of Power" – players want to build as many columns as high as they can.

Players start the game with their knight in the center of the hexagonal game board, with each space other than the center holding a triangular, square, hexagonal, octagonal or round disc. On a turn, a player moves her knight in a straight line from its current location (crossing over any empty spaces) until it lands on a disc; if the space that the knight started from contained a disc, she picks up this disc and places it in her reserve. On a future turn, when this player would claim a disc of the same shape, she can either:

• Pick up the disc and add it to her reserve, or
• Take all the discs of this shape from her reserve and place them on the identically-shaped disc on the board, marking this column with a cylinder of her player color.

On future turns, if a player would move onto a column marked with her cube, she can instead use this column as a bumper and bounce her knight in another direction, thereby giving her more options for movement. As soon as no player can take any more moves, the game ends and players tally their points. A column with two discs is worth 1 point, a column with three worth 3, a column with four worth 5, and so on. Whoever has the largest score wins!