Gliss

Gliss is an intricate game of strategy for two players, Red and Blue. In Gliss, players place down bases, deploy fleets of flying shapes and claim enemy stones to establish new bases and control towers. Unlike similar games in this family, such as 1972’s Realm, the game uses the simplest of generic equipment, allowing it to be played easily by anyone. This is because Gliss uses an intriguing system of moving and stationary glyphs to generate all the action in the game. A game of Gliss cannot end in a draw. Corey L. Clark designed Gliss in August 2024. Equipment: Any board of any size between 12x12 and 19x19 and an unlimited supply of stones in two colors. Note: The game is played on the vertices of the board, as with Go, stones are only said to be adjacent if they are connected by the vertices of the board. Definitions: In Gliss only three shapes are allowed on the board, these are: Base: A Base is a 2x2 block of stones in one player’s color Glider: A Glider is a bent shape consisting of 3 stones in a player's color. A Glider has a Core and Arms. A Glider can move in the two directions in which the arms project from the corner stone which is the core. Control Tower: a Control Tower is a single stone in one player's color, obviously with no friendly stones adjacent Gameplay: On your turn you have two options: build a Base. Alternatively you may deploy a Glider from a base, move a Glider or Dock a Glider, or potentially all 3 of these in combination, depending on the move. Building: you may place a Base next to nothing or enemy stones; if placed next to friendly stones this creates an illegal shape. Deployment: Any base may deploy 1 of 4 Gliders embedded in it(one for each set of directions possible). Simply take the stones comprising the Glider and move them to a destination according to the conventions in the "Movement" section next. Movement: A Glider may move in a series of orthogonal steps according to one or both of the directions indicated by its arms. A Glider may and must continue moving as long as it would create an illegal shape with the friendly pieces nearby by landing or it would otherwise land on top of them, the Glider however must terminate its movement as soon as it could land, either by itself or as part of a Base, at that point either landing, or else reverting the movement in the case that any enemy control tower is in the way of the landing zone. Docking: Docking is moving a Glider so it forms a Base with either a friendly or enemy Control Tower. If you dock a Glider with an enemy Control Tower the enemy tower you can immediately convert it to your color, unless this would create an illegal shape. Capturing: the only shapes that can be captured by replacement (as opposed to converted) are enemy Gliders. If you land on an enemy Glider or Base then you remove the entirety of the Glider you landed upon. When capturing a Glider from a Base, you are said to land on the enemy Glider's Core and you capture the Core with its respective Arms (note: you may choose one of two Gliders if you land on a Base with two stones of the Glider you are moving) Moving off the edge: If a Glider cannot land safely before it reaches the board edge, then it is compelled to move off the board, destroying it. Game End: You win a game of Gliss either by wiping all your opponent’s bases off the board (without eliminating all your own bases in the process in which case you lose) or if you start your turn with 12 of your own control towers on the board. —description from the designer