Description

Special cake is a two players game playable with the Shibumi game system. It uses the 4×4 holes board and 30 balls of the set. The game consists of three variants, created together, at the same time: "mint and liquorice candies", "sugar candies" and "mint, liquorice and cherry candies (aka the poisoned candy)".

Mint and liquorice candies
In the “mint and liquorice candies” variant the balls are 15 white (mint candies) and 15 black (liquorice candies).
Rules
Set up: a player places a mint candy and the other a liquorice candy until the pyramid (the cake) is complete. The candies can be placed either on empty board holes or stacking on 2x2 platforms of existing candies.
Game: the game starts when the cake is complete. Players take turns eating (removing) a candy, either mint or liquorice, or a line of mint and liquorice candies. The candies forming the line can be removed, one-by-one, in any desired order.
A line is a straight group (in 3D) of at least two tastes touching candies, either orthogonally if they are in the same level or one on top of the other if they are in different levels. The lines don't wrap around corners or edges (since in this case they are not really straight when you consider the 3D space).
The player who eats the last candy loses the game.

Sugar candies
The “sugar candies” variant of the game uses 30 balls, randomly selected among the whole Shibumi set of 16 white balls, 16 black balls and 16 red balls.
Rules
The game starts with all the 30 candies placed to form the complete square pyramid (the cake). Players take turns eating (removing) a candy or a line of touching candies. The candies forming the line can be removed, one-by-one, in any desired order.
A line is a straight group (in 3D) of at least two touching candies, either orthogonally if they are in the same level or one on top of the other if they are in different levels. The lines don't wrap around corners or edges (since in this case they are not really straight when you consider the 3D space).
The player who eats the last candy loses the game.

Mint, liquorice and cherry candies (aka the poisoned candy)
In the mint, liquorice and cherry candies variant of the game the balls are 15 white (mint candies), 14 black (liquorice candies) and one red ball (cherry candy).
Rules
Set up: a player places a mint candy and the other a liquorice candy till the 29th candy, then the cherry candy is placed on the top of the pyramid (the cake). The candies can be placed either on empty board holes or stacking on 2x2 platforms of existing candies.
Game: the game starts when the cake is complete. Players take turns eating (removing) a candy, either mint or liquorice, or a line of mint and liquorice candies. The candies forming the line can be removed, one-by-one, in any desired order.
A line is a straight group (in 3D) of at least two tastes touching candies, either orthogonally if they are in the same level or one on top of the other if they are in different levels. The lines don't wrap around corners or edges (since in this case they are not really straight when you consider the 3D space).
The player who eats the cherry candy loses the game (and, if it is poisoned, the life, too!).

Notes
According to the Shibumi drop mechanism, when a ball is removed, then any others that it supports will drop. Any ball that directly supports two or more on the level above is pinned and cannot be removed.
Due to the drop mechanism and to the possibility to remove a straight group of balls, one-by-one, a ball of the line that you want to remove, pinned at the beginning of the move, can become unpinned during the move after the removal of another ball of the group, thus allowing its removing. The players are not forced to remove full lines, i.e. the longest lines in that direction.

Online play

Special cake can be played online (real time) at igGameCenter - http://www.iggamecenter.com/info/en/sandboxshibumi.html