A Man either moves diagonally forward to an empty square or optionally begins a jump sequence, over any piece. The chosen sequence must be completed. Pieces always go diagonally forward, by steps or jumps. However, a piece at the farthest rank may step backwards. Capture does not occur. The goal is to place all the pieces in the opponent’s home zone.
In this implementation, a piece is forced to jump out of the home zone if an enemy piece is placed before it. This is to prevent a blocking strategy. Stalemate is loss.
This Halma variant is played in Northern Slovakia, Orava. It’s called Preskakovaná, which means ‘skip-over’.
Reference
Ondrus, R. (2000). “Slovakian games”. Abstract Nation. (here)
• You can download my free Northern Slovakian Halma program here, but you must own the software Zillions of Games to be able to run it (I recommend the download version).
© M. Winther (Sept 2020).
