Free game: Gravel
December 20, 2025 Leave a comment
Yeah, a bit like this.
A new abstract game I wanted to put out before the end of the year:
Gravel, a game about missing the (Schwer)punkt.
Years ago I had an idea for a Go variant where the single stone played each turn could be broken up into smaller bits with lesser power (stones make gravel, see) and played on other points of the Goban so captures would be probabilistic: you would make a capture by generating a random result equal to or less than your cumulative strength differential.
This is not quite that of course but in their turn a player may place and remove a total of friendly and enemy pieces (respectively) that is equal to or less than “X”, an integer agreed upon at the start of the game. A player loses through attrition (losing more than half of their starting pieces).
The idea of “control” over a space relying only on occupation of its flanks and rear (which permits capture in it, no matter how strong it is) is inspired by games like Ki (Corey Clark, 2010) and Control (Takuro Kawasaki, 2024) though those games forbid placement in an enemy controlled space.
Placements and removals in the game must be balanced, especially early on, and there is a crucial difference in placement between pieces that are already on the grid versus those that are coming from the pieces not yet placed. The choice of whether to place or remove first can be important; a player might want to first build up to attack a swath of territory or they might want to clear some points of enemy then follow it up with occupations.
Playing in the squares of an 8×8 checkerboard and setting “X” to 4 or 5 will give players a peppy 15 minute game if they don’t think too hard. The Tabletop Simulator module linked here is set up for that:
Perhaps you will give it a try!
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brtrain 
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