Five Traditional Folk Board Games: Rules, Strategy and a Little History

Some of the best strategy games ever invented were never sold in a box. They were drawn in chalk on a pavement, scratched into the dirt, or marked on a stone step, and played with pebbles, seeds or bottle caps. Because they were passed on by word of mouth, their rules vary from place to place, and many are slowly being forgotten. This guide covers five of them: the rules in the common versions, practical strategy for beginners, and a few honest notes on their history.

All five are playable in our Folk Game Hall, which uses the rule versions described below. If you learned a different version as a child, that is normal; local variation is part of what makes these games folk games.

1. Tiger and Goats

Rules

Tiger and Goats is a hunt game: two unequal sides with different goals.

• Board: a 5 by 5 grid of points with diagonal lines (a star or "alquerque" style grid), 25 points in all.
• Pieces: 4 tigers, which start on the four corners, and 20 goats, which start off the board.
• Placement phase: the goat player places one goat per turn on an empty point. Tigers can move during this phase.
• Movement phase: once all 20 goats are placed, goats move one step along a line to an adjacent empty point.
• Tigers move one step along a line, or capture by jumping over an adjacent goat in a straight line to the empty point directly beyond it.
• Winning: tigers win after capturing five goats. Goats win if they block all four tigers so that none can move or jump.

Strategy

As the goats, you win by patience. Fill the edges and corners first, keep goats in solid groups where every goat is backed by another, and never leave a goat with an empty point behind it on a line a tiger can use. Losing one or two goats early is not fatal; leaving holes is.

As the tigers, stay mobile and spread out. A tiger stuck in a corner is easy to trap. Look for positions where one tiger threatens two jumps at once, because the goats can only block one.

History

This game belongs to a large family of hunt games found across South and East Asia. Its best-known relative is Bagh-Chal, often described as the national game of Nepal, which uses the same four tigers and twenty goats.

2. Cannons and Soldiers

Rules

Another asymmetric game, with a twist on how captures work.

• Board: a 5 by 5 grid of points connected by straight lines.
• Pieces: 2 cannons and 12 soldiers.
• Cannons move first. Both sides move one step along a straight grid line to an empty point.
• Capture: a cannon captures by jumping over exactly one empty point in a straight line and landing on a soldier, removing it. A soldier directly next to a cannon is safe, because there is no gap to fire across.
• Soldiers cannot capture.
• Winning: soldiers win by surrounding both cannons so neither has a legal move. Cannons win if the soldiers are reduced to two or fewer.

Strategy

The capture rule turns normal intuition upside down. For the soldiers, being close to a cannon is safe; being one gap away is dangerous. Advance in a tight line, so that soldiers either touch a cannon or are shielded by each other, and close the net gradually.

For the cannons, keep distance and create gaps. Move to positions where a single empty point separates you from a soldier, and try to threaten two soldiers at once.

History

This game is one of many Chinese folk games played on simple drawn grids, often known by local names. Its precise origin is not documented, which is typical of games passed on by children and in villages rather than written down.

3. Watermelon Chess

Rules

Watermelon Chess gets its name from its round board, whose curved lines look like the stripes on a watermelon.

• Board: 21 points connected by curved and straight lines inside a circle.
• Pieces: each side has six pieces, often called seeds.
• Movement: on your turn, move one piece one step along a line to an adjacent empty point.
• Capture: after you move, any enemy group of connected pieces that has no adjacent empty point is surrounded and removed. There is no jumping.
• Winning: in the common six-piece rule, you win by reducing your opponent to two pieces or fewer. If both sides are reduced to two, the game is drawn.

Strategy

Watermelon Chess rewards the same thinking as Go in miniature. Keep your own pieces with breathing room, meaning at least one adjacent empty point, and avoid dead ends on the outer ring. Try to drive enemy pieces towards the edge, where they have fewer neighbours, then close the last escape point. Before every move, check whether moving away from a point leaves one of your own groups with no empty neighbour.

History

The game is known as a Chinese folk game traditionally drawn on the ground or on paper. Its round board is distinctive, but, as with many folk games, there is little reliable documentation of where or when it began.

4. Jungle (Dou Shou Qi)

Rules

Jungle, also called Dou Shou Qi or animal chess, is the most complex game in this list and a favourite with children because the pieces are animals.

• Board: 7 columns by 9 rows, with two rivers in the middle, a den at each end and three traps around each den.
• Pieces: each side has eight animals ranked from lowest to highest: rat, cat, dog, wolf, leopard, tiger, lion, elephant. Red moves first.
• Movement: every animal moves one square orthogonally (not diagonally). You may never enter your own den.
• Capture: an animal captures an enemy of equal or lower rank. The exception: the rat can capture the elephant, and the elephant cannot capture the rat.
• Rivers: only the rat can enter water. Lions and tigers can jump across a river in a straight line, but not if a rat is in the water on their path.
• Traps: an enemy animal standing in one of your traps loses its rank, so any of your animals can capture it.
• Winning: move any animal into the enemy den, or capture all enemy animals.

Strategy

Rank is not everything. Your rat is one of your most important pieces: it threatens the elephant and blocks river jumps. Keep it in or near the water. Use small animals to guard your traps; an invader in your trap can be taken by your weakest piece. On attack, threaten the traps around the enemy den with two animals at once, so the defender cannot cover both.

History

Jungle is a Chinese game, and the standard modern form is generally dated to the twentieth century. Its exact origin is unclear, and older roots are sometimes suggested without firm evidence.

5. Gomoku

Rules

Gomoku is the simplest game here to learn and one of the hardest to master.

• Board: a 15 by 15 grid; stones are placed on the intersections.
• Play: Black moves first. Players alternate placing one stone on any empty intersection. Stones never move and are never captured.
• Winning: the first player to make five in a row, horizontally, vertically or diagonally, wins. If the board fills up with no five, the game is a draw.
• Casual rules: the version in our hall uses the common family rule with no forbidden moves. Competitive play often adds restrictions on the first player; the best-known version is Renju.

Strategy

The key idea is the double threat. An open three (three in a row with both ends free) forces a reply, and an open four cannot be stopped. Strong players build positions where one stone creates two threats at once, such as a four and an open three. On defence, block open threes early, and block them on the side that also limits your opponent's other lines.

History

Five-in-a-row games are played on Go boards across East Asia. The name Gomoku comes from Japanese, and the game has been popular in Japan, China and Korea for a long time, under various names.

Getting started

If you are new to these games, start with Gomoku or Watermelon Chess, which take minutes to learn. Then try an asymmetric game such as Tiger and Goats, playing both sides so you understand what each one fears. Leave Jungle for when you are comfortable with the idea that rank, terrain and timing all matter at once.

The Folk Game Hall has tutorials, move highlighting and computer opponents at several difficulty levels for each of these games, which makes it easy to learn the rules before teaching them to someone else across a real table.