Dicess is a game where you use dice as pieces. Every game of Dicess is practically unique because the initial setup is determined by rolling all the dice. The name is a combination of the words “dice” and “chess” because the game has a remote similarity to Chess.

Board

Play on a 8×8 square grid (Chess board). The two middle squares on the row nearest a player are marked with a star (see image below).

Pieces

Every player has 16 dice in one color each.

Setup

Both players roll all their dice. Then the player with the lighter dice color places all his dice into his first two rows (one die per square). Then the other player does likewise.

Play

Players alternate taking turns. The player with the lighter dice color starts.

Each turn you make a number of moves costing up to a total of 6 points (but at least 1). Moving a die to an adjacent square costs points equal to the die number. You cannot move diagonally. You may move multiple dice. You cannot move over other dice.

Capture

You can capture an opponent’s die by moving onto it. To do this the number of your capturing die plus all the numbers of all your dice orthogonally (i.e. not diagonally) adjacent to the captured die must be equal to or greater than the number of the captured die. Capturing always ends your turn.

Promotion

If you move a die from the second-last row to the last row (i.e. the one nearest your opponent) then you may change that die to any number. You must do this immediately or forfeit the opportunity.

Win

You win by moving a die onto one of the two star squares of your opponent.

Impasse

The game ends when it has reached an impasse and the winner is instead the player with the higher score (see below). If that is tied then the player with the darker dice color wins (i.e. the player who moved second).

An impasse happens if in the last five rounds no die has been captured or promoted and neither player has a higher score than they did five rounds ago (i.e. there has been no net advancement of dice).

A player determines his score by adding up the score values of all his dice. The score value of a die is 10 + it’s row number from the owner’s perspective (e.g. a die in the first row has a value of 11, a die in the last row has a value of 18). Note that the numbers on the dice are not used.