Rocco

Rocco board game

In Rocco the goal is to place all Men on their corresponding number at the opposite side. A Man makes one or two steps orthogonally or diagonally in all directions. It is compelled to jump over an enemy Man if the latter just moved to an adjacent square, but only if the landing square is in the northward directions (i.e., closer to the goal squares). One may not go back to the home squares.

Rocco was invented by the Danish mathematics teacher Sophus Tromholt in 1893. The game was published in 1894. It antedates the game Salta from 1899, which has similar rules. However, the game works badly with original rules. A man cannot move along the line if it stands eye-to-eye with an enemy piece on the same line. A Man moves one step orthogonally, but slides diagonally. It results in a drawish game. This version introduces the forced jump move. In a simplified variant, it is sufficient to move all the Men to the opposite side, without regard to the numbers.

Reference

Rocco rules sheet 1 (Danish) (here) (1894)

Rocco rules sheet 2 (Danish) (here)

A thanks to P. Michaelsen for providing information about this old board game.

☛ You can download my free Rocco program here, but you must own the software Zillions of Games to be able to run it (I recommend the download version).