Fifangha - Printable Version +- Ludii Forum (https://ludii.games/forums) +-- Forum: Suggestions (https://ludii.games/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=10) +--- Forum: Games to Include (https://ludii.games/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=12) +--- Thread: Fifangha (/showthread.php?tid=1641) |
Fifangha - Alain Busser - 08-13-2023 Hello, I can read Flacourt (old French but French anyway) in the text. I had colored the special pits here:Yet after having tried the game I don't think there is any reason to keep the red pits (2nd chibon as Flacourt named them). The important pits are the ones colored blue (Flacourt named them 1rst chibon, I propose just tsibongy which is the correct spelling for chibon). The original text is here: I sum up: at the beginning of the game only the central pits are not empty, with one seed per pit. Which means that the players have 26 seeds in their hands. So the game has two phases:
I don't know how to program this incomplete description. My beginning of work is here included (I show the tsibongys and did the start rules). Shall I invent logical rules for the phase 2? I have a clue anyway: at the beginning of 20th century, Dandouau described a game he called katra fandatsaka and which looks very much like the fifangha described by Flacourt at the middle of 17th century. So should I not program the katra fandatsaka instead and give "katra fandatsaka" as an alias of fifangha? In this game, the second phase is just sowing from one of one's occupied pit, but taking the opponent's seed to sow from the tsibongy and only the opponent's seeds. By the way Dandouau described also a "katra Sakalava" which he thought was played only by Sakalava people (North West of the island) and is even more complicated imho. Shall I give this one as a variant of Fifangha? Here is a text version of Flacourt's document: Quote:Le fifangha est un jeu d'esprit, comme l'autre est d'adresse, il tient du jeu de dames et du Trictrac, on joue avec certains fruits ronds qu'ils nomment basia, sur une tablette de bois, où il y a 32 trous en 4 rangs, 16 servant à un joueur, et 16 à l'autre. Il faut avoir chacun 32 basia. Ce jeu est assez récréatif. Les premiers trous (ou cases) marqués A, sont les (premiers) tsibongy, il y en a 4. (Ces cases marquées B, sont les seconds tsibongy, il y en a aussi 4.) Celles qui sont marquées D sont les cases de derrière ou de dehors, qui sont 16. To sum up, this description is quite compatible with the rules of katra fandatsaka which could make it an ancestor (or more likely a cousin) to bao. RE: Fifangha - Alain Busser - 01-31-2024 Having played to this game (including with children), I came up with what seems to be the simplest rules compatible with de Flacourt's writing: As for the last sown seed, there are 3 cases: Case 1: it falls into an empty pit. This marks the end of a turn (this is why it is forbidden to begin a turn with an empty pit). Case 2: it falls into a nonempty pit in the inner row such that the facing pit (in the enemy's inner row) is not empty either. In that case, one takes all the seeds from the facing pit, and sows them beginning by a tsibongy (leftest or rightest pit from one's inner row) of one's choice, in the direction of the other tsibongy. Case 3 (all the rest): the last seed falls into a nonempty pit which is in the outer row, or such that the opposite pit is empty. In that case, one takes all the seeds from the arrival pit and sows them, one by one, beginning by the following pit (keeping the direction of sowing always the same during the turn). At the beginning of the play, each player has 26 seeds in his store and 6 seeds on the board (one in each of the the inner pits). At his turn he takes a seed from the store and uses it as if it was the last seed of a sowing (which it is, actually). More precisely, - one should not sow this seed in an empty pit (which means that the first player whose inner row is empty, looses the game) - if there is a nonempty pit in the inner row, such that the facing pit is nonempty too, one must play such a pit - if all the nonempty pits from the inner row face empty pits, one is in case 3, and sows one's own seeds from the chosen pit. In that case, one sows this way until the end of the turn (if you don't take seeds at the beginning of the turn, you take no seed during all the turn). These rules, coherent with de Flacourt's description, are playable (as said before, even by children) except that de Flacourt did not say what happens if no inner row was emptied after the 26 turns by player. A child suggested that in that case the winner is the player who has the most seeds in his part of the board. It is possible to adapt these rules to smaller boards, like 4×6 or even 4×4 (tested). |