Sometimes a game grows beyond its initial incarnation to become something more. Looney Pyramids began in a short story written by a young Andrew Looney in 1987, and over the following 35 years it has evolved through numerous incarnations to become a full fledged game system. As such, a single review seems insufficient, and so we present Looney Saturday, a regular, bimonthly, look at a different Pyramid game.
We technically started with “Pyramids: A Primer, Abridged” which is a great place to start if you’ve never played a Pyramid game. In this month’s review, we going to look at Martian Chess, the third of four individually packaged games, collectively called the “Pyramid Quartet” as well as being included part of Pyramid Arcade:
Martian Chess
Happy New Years everyone! Let’s start January off right with another Looney Labs Pyramid Arcade Review. Today we are reviewing another 2 person only game but with a 4 player variation, one that requires brain power and strategy; Martian Chess. Martian Chess is included in the full box of Pyramid Arcade, or you can buy it individually for easy travel and storage. (Plus a unique, opaque, set of pyramids.)
Martian Chess is probably one of my favourite games that I have played from the Looney Labs collection so far. It requires a certain style of thinking I seem to excel at faster than most. Every person I introduce this game to, I seem to have the advantage and win the first couple of rounds. I generally am very unlucky and bad at board games, so I like this new change. Dave introduced this one to me as well, and he proceeded to kick my butt (as per usual), but I did catch on quickly and ended up beating him by the third or fourth game.
I don’t recommend this as a warmup game, even though it is small and a quick play, most people want to end on this game as it does require a lot of brainpower. I personally like it as a starter game, but I seem to be the odd person out for this one. It is a quick game to learn, and everyone who plays it enjoys the game and wants to play multiple rounds. The hardest part is remembering once a piece crosses the other side of the board, you don’t control the piece anymore; that seems to be what catches everyone and makes them need to think.
For Martian Chess, you need the board (4×8 squares, ideally with a line down the center) and 6 trios (18 pyramids). The individual version of the game came with a nice solid dark red set, and I really enjoyed the colour. They do state in the rule book that colour means nothing, so you could mix and match if you wanted as well. This game does not have a “checkmate” like normal chess; this game is won by having the most points at the end of the game.
They change the terminology for this game; the smallest pyramids are called pawns, the middle pyramids are called drones, and the large pyramids are called queens. The setup for this game is simple, like the previous games I’ve reviewed. You start setting up your pyramids on the right side, opposing corners of the board into a 3×3 square. You start with a queen in the corner and put the other 2 queens, one on each side. Then make a diagonal row of the drones and fill the rest of the square with pawns.
To play, players take turns moving one piece in their zone in a straight unobstructed line. Pawns move 1 space diagonally, drones move 1-2 spaces vertical or horizontal, and queens move any distance, any straight-line direction. The game will end when there are no more pieces in your zone (your half of the board). Here is where it gets tricky; as previously mentioned, you control all the pieces in your zone. Once you move a piece into the opponent’s zone, it belongs to them now. On your turn you attempt to capture pieces from your opponent’s side of the board. You do so by landing your piece on a square that has one of their pieces. You then put that captured piece aside to save for point scoring later.
It sounds simple enough, right? Make sure you give this game a try before making that judgement call. A few extra rules are no “undo’s”, which means you cannot just move a piece back to the exact same square it came from. You can also do what they call “field promotion” where if you don’t have a queen, you can create one by moving a drone into a pawns square on your side, basically merging them to make a queen. You can do the same thing with two pawns to make a drone as well. If there seems to be a deadlock and no one is making progress with the pieces left on the board, you can “call the clock” which means there is 7 moves left and if no piece is captured in those 7 moves, the game is over, and the score is calculated.
The game ends when one person’s zone does not have any pyramids left on it. You then tally up your scores of captured pieces to determine the winner. The pawns are worth 1 point, drones are worth 2, and queens are worth 3 points. In the event of a tie, whoever ended the game is the winner.
The rule book does come with some strategy tips, but I prefer letting people figure out their own way of playing. I really enjoy this one and do think it is one of my favourites so far. The strategy keeps you on your toes and you need to learn to adapt to what your opponent is doing quickly.
You can find everything Pyramids on its dedicated homepage at looneylabs.com/pyramids-home. or in the Starships Captain’s Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/StarshipCaptains.
More generally you can find Looney Labs online at looneylabs.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/LooneyLabs.
