Presentation

Yin Yang is a strategy board game where you make up your own rules of combat and regeneration. You secretly define on dominoes the laws by which you fight, then lay them down throughout the game in order to destroy your adversary's pieces or regenerate your own.

Aim of the game

To win, you must either reach the opposite Yin-yang corner (the square where the symbol of yin and yang is) with one of your pieces, or force your opponent to have no available actions to play.

Gameplay

Black plays first, then white. During their turn, each player must either:

• Move one of their pieces
• Apply one of their laws
• Move one of their pieces then apply one of their laws. (only in this order)

If they are unable to perform any of these actions, they lose the game.

Movement

The pieces move one space (not diagonally) onto an empty square.

Laws

Each domino defines a law. A domino has four slots representing 4 squares on the board, then an arrow pointing to 4 other slots. In each of the first 4 slots, you can insert a white plug, a black plug or leave it empty: together, they represent a cause. In the other 4 slots, which represent an effect, you will insert the same combination of plugs, albeit with one of these modifications:

• One plug has disappeared. This is a destruction law.
• Two plugs (of the same color) have appeared on previously empty slots. This is a regeneration law.
• The effect is represented as 2 arrows in a circle. This is an adaptation law.

Creation of laws

Before the start of the game, players secretly define 4 laws each. These laws are hidden to your opponent until revealed. When a player decides to apply a law for the first time, the law is revealed and placed to the right of the gameboard (from their viewpoint), with the arrow pointing to the right. It is forbidden to reveal a law without applying it in the same turn. Once revealed, the law can be used by its owner at any of their turns, whenever the cause is met.

Conditions of application

A law is applicable when on the game board, we can isolate 4 adjacent squares where the placement of the pieces match those of the plugs constituting the cause. In case of a destruction/regeneration law, applying the law means modifying those 4 squares on the board so that it matches the effect of the law.

In case of an adaptation law, you do not modify the placement of the pieces on the board, but one of your own laws (revealed or hidden). Pick one of your dominoes and modify it as you please. It is then hidden until you decide to apply it in a further turn. You can modify the adaptation law itself, like any other law. You can't change one of your opponent's laws. You can't modify a law and apply it in the same turn, since the modification already counts as your action.

The law is always oriented with the arrow to the right. It can't be rotated.

A law can only be applied on one place at a time.

A law of destruction will always make only one piece disappear, and a law of regeneration will only make two appear.

The application of a law is not compulsory, but remember a player always has to play at least one action per turn. You can't apply one of your opponent's laws.

Note that you only have finitely many new pegs available for regeneration (8 for Black, 10 for White). Once they have been placed, regeneration laws may no longer be applied.

Conflicting laws

Two laws are said to be conflicting if they have the same cause, but two different effects. They cannot coexist: it is therefore forbidden to reveal a law which is conflicting with a law already revealed. You will have to modify it with an adaptation law or wait for your opponent to modify them.