Draughts / Checkers

I plan add draughts on Little Golem. Vote about variant.

Good idea. Thanks! I hope for Christian's game, Dameo, but we'll see how the vote goes.

Thanks. I would vote for international draughts-checkers.

It can hardly be a surprise that my vote would go to Dameo, not because I invented it (the major breakthrough was in fact Ljuban Dedic's game Croda, on which it is based) but because I feel it's the best "weapon". It offers everything that makes International Draughts such a great game, including almost all of its standard combinations, but it is far more decisive. This admittedly doesn't need to be a prime consideration because Draughts' drawishness is only problematic at top level, yet I feel it's worth mentioning. Also, Draughts can be played at quite a number of sites already.

That's a great thing, always missed that game on LG, and is the last barrier for me to switch to LG entirely (except for Arimaa, which will probably never be available on LG). :) Chess can be played on so many other sites, yet it is great to have it here, that way you don't need to be on so many different sites. The same applies for checkers/draughts.

I believe international is the first one that makes sense here: otherwise you'll be "regionalizing" the game, which doesn't make much sense in an international site as littlegolem. :) Of course you can add variants later on, based on how many people want them.

Dameo looks interesting, but it is not played much yet. Could be an interesting variant to introduce in the future to discover it and then introduce it to friends IRL.

"International draughts" is a bit of a misnomer, since it's really only played over-the-board in parts of Europe.

I've read some of Christian Freeling's discussion about the future of draughts, which I find interesting, and there is a strong argument in favour of Dameo.

Christian, would you consider posting a link to some of this discussion? I'm not sure where your latest thinking is located. I read some good stuff in a BGG thread recently....

Hi Kerry,

Since you asked, ' Game & Puzzle Design' will shortly feature an article covering just that issue. I fear I'd only be repeating myself here. My general views can be found in ' On the Evolution of Draughts Variants' and ' Draughts Dissected'. At BGG I tried to discuss Emergo but largely failed to unveil its beauty. So I'd rather await reactions to the article first. Thanks anyway for supporting Dameo. :)

P.S. there are quite a few national federations of International Draughts.

Vol. 1, no. 2, 2015 of ' Game & Puzzle Design' is out. It features an article on Dameo.

Is Emergo (another great game invented by Christian Freeling) a draughts variant or is it a stacking game variant?

Hi Tony,

That would depend on one's definition I guess. Personally I like to include column- and 'contact capture' checkers in the family.

Personally, too, I think Emergo is the most beautiful game I invented. Or actually co-invented: it would never have emerged if Ed van Zon hadn't put me on its trail. But its beauty may be too far from intrusive to have itself revealed effortlessly.

Is there an open version of your article? If not, then it's not the most effective way to explain your point of view.

I picked up a nice review od Dameo.

@ Hyperpape

Here's a link to a rather extensive version of my point of view. The short version: Dameo, using the same basic framework as International Draughts, retains everything that made that game great while considerably reducing its margin of draws.