I’m a gamer, always have been. Problem is for a large number of years that’s really just consisted of the video variety. That’s a huge mistake on my part, to not enjoy the video game’s analog brethren… the board game. There’s actually a vibrant and intense board game world out there that’s been pushed to the sidelines by game players such as ourselves for too long. In this column I’ll be diving into this world, looking at games that hopefully you’d like to try out for yourself.

I’ve been doing my best with this column to show off all kinds of different board games, from card games like Dominion and Martian Fluxx to Euro-style games like Ticket to Ride to a game like Hive. Well, that trend continues today with the abstract strategy game DVONN. More complicated than checkers but less so than Chess, DVONN exists without any sort of theme whatsoever and just stands as “a game.” Which is perfectly fine. One doesn’t need to have a storyline to make a game engaging (just ask Tetris fans) and it just goes to show that like the video game world all different genres exist for board games as well.

So, just what exactly is DVONN?

DVONN is part of a series of abstract games for two players called the GIPF Project. They’re all similar in style but play very differently from one another. They also all have these non-sensical but somehow serious sounding names (PUNCT, TAMSK, YINSH, DVONN, GIPF, ZERTZ and TZAAR). So far DVONN is the only one I’ve played but after tearing into it I gotta say I’m excited to try a few more.

DVONN is simple enough to understand in a manner of minutes, and after playing begins to reveal how much of a deeper strategy exists for the game. The game starts with each player holding 23 white or black pieces (there are some red pieces I’ll explain later). The game is separated into two phases, placement and play. In the first phase the players will take alternating turns placing pieces of their own color on the board until it’s full.

After that’s finished you’ll begin to move your pieces around the board. To do this you’ll move your pieces on top of others, creating towers of different heights. The interesting twist here is that a piece will always move the number of places that it is tall. So on your first one you can only move one space onto another piece. Now that tower is 2 pieces high so it must move 2 spaces next time (so on and so forth). Pieces can’t change direction when they move around so the tower can quickly become immobile after it gets too tall.

The top piece’s color determines who “owns” it and more than I few times I’ve lost some huge towers when a single piece was moved on top of it. The game ends when no more moves can be made. All the towers of each players are then stacked up and whoever has more is the winner. Sounds pretty simple right? Well, that’s where the red pieces come in.

The red pieces are called the DVONN (for whatever reason) and any pieces that aren’t at least indirectly connected to at least 1 of them are removed immediately from the board. They don’t need to be in direct contact but can be connected through other pieces.

This “needing to be connected” element really becomes interesting in the endgame, where you could stand to lose a ton of pieces if the other player is able to get you separated from the DVONN’s. Another thing to remember is that the game ends when no more moves can be made, so if you can make a legal move that’ll royally screw you over you need to make it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this game, it takes only a few moments to learn and therefore gets you up and running quickly. It takes a game or two to see the general strategy play out and you’ll begin to see how it all fits together. The game moves fast, especially the 2nd phase. When you first play your inclination is to build the highest stacks you can, though you’ll quickly learn you’re much better off with smaller stacks, since they’re still mobile. One stack of 10 means you can’t move it, where five stacks 2 high can go just about anywhere. It’s also a blast to create a stack with a DVONN piece in it that you can move away from your opponents pieces.

After playing DVONN I can say I’m seriously excited about trying more from the GIPF line. It’s low barrier of entry to understanding and quick play make it perfect for the person that doesn’t really think they’d like board games (cause they picture something like Monopoly). As I said in the beginning, it’s harder than checkers but easier than chess… and just about everyone knows how to play those. A game like DVONN deserves a place in any good game collection.

DVONN was designed by Kris Burm and was originally published by Rio Grande Games in 2001. You can buy it at Amazon, Funagain.com or your Friendly Local Game Store.