Bloq - A Strategy Game

Bloq

A strategy game for 2 players designed by Hunter Dyar

About

Bloq is a strategy game. The goal is to get one’s piece to the opposite corner before the other player does, and not get blocked out by the other player. Smart, adaptable play is the key.

Pieces

Bloq is played on a 7x7 space (49 spaces), There are two pawns (black and white), and there are 10 ‘bloq’s” (5 white, 5 black).

A checker board modified to be 7x7, checkers for the bloq’s, and chess pawns will work fine.

Setup

Place the two pawns on opposite corners of the board. Each player holds their 5 bloq’s to the side.

Goal

The goal of the game - winning- is to get to the opposite corner first. To get to where the opponent begins. The first player to do this wins.

Playing the Game

Traditionally, white goes first. One a turn, a player may do one of 2 things: Move the pawn or place a bloq. Players alternate turns, and the first one to get to the opposite corner (where the other player began) wins. No diagonal movement. A pawn must move as far in a horizontal or vertical (Manhattan) direction as it can. Pawns movement is stopped by the edge of the board, any color bloq’s, or the other pawn.

Additional Rules

• You may not completely block off the opponents path to the goal square.


• One a turn, you must be able to move your pawn - you can not play in such a way as to prevent the other player from moving their pawn in some direction.


• A player may be entirely locked out from getting to the goal, but there still must be a possible path. In other words, the player is blocked out because they do not have any bloq’s left to free themselves.

Showing possible moves for each player.

Strategy Basics

• It is important to save bloq’s when possible


• Try and work your pawn into an unblockable position to the goal


• Use your opponent’s bloq’s against them.


• Your pawn can be used to temporarily block your opponent

This Happens Today

This Happens Today is now live, check out my new project at thishappenstoday.com

What Is it?

This Happens Today is a daily posting of fake headlines that are supposed to be funny. The idea was inspired by a few things: The Onion, John Hodgeman's That Is All, True American Dog, and some other similar publications. Fake news is damn funny, the onion has taught us, but the original idea did not come from me trying to be them, it came from a scribble in my ntoebook: "Fake Humor Horiscope", which slowly transformed into the fake headlines, which I am not really even doing. In fact, many of the posts are not headlines at all, just... things that happened. IE the title: This Happens Today.

Consider This Happens Today to be my daily prediction of the future. Remember, I have already finished writing every post, so let's see how it turns out! I have high hopes for my Olympic game jokes.

Why?

I wrote every post this year, 366 of them, in 5 days. This just sort of happened, and when I realized I wrote 2 months in one day I thought to myself "I can write 366 posts before 2012" and then "Challenge accepted". This challenge comes down to one of the basic beliefs I try and live by: "Inspiration is for amateurs". It would go right under "Que Sera Sera" and "Filter all input, escape all output" as things I try and live by. Full quote:

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.”

Chuck Close

This project, as well as NaNoWriMo (btw I won again) and other "Jam" projects I do is a test of creativity and pertinacity, as well as just plain funniness. I am sure over the next few weeks I will be browsing the posts and editing, refining them to be funnier, since a lot of these posts are probably just absolute crap, but all things considered it is a lot of funny in a short amount of time. Awesome!

How?

Blogger.com fool. eventually I will move the thing (as well as this thing and that other thing) over to TopHat, which is a self-hosted blogging CMS I am working with Alec Gorge on.

Now, I mean, How did you get all the ideas?

I don't really know the answer to this. I stared at a blank screen for a bit, and then my fingers move. Sometimes they hit some buttons in the right order and funny was created. Also post-it notes while I was sleeping. One thing I didn't do was go to theonion.com or read any of the books I own, I didn't want to corrupt myself with their ideas and accidentally steal something. I went to theonion.com after I finished and realized two things: 1) They are damn funny. 2) I need some shitty photoshop to accompany everything. (True American Dog agrees). The idea crossed my head to illustrate the headlines, and I would essentially be making comics. Having just finished reading every The Far Side cartoon ever, I am feeling inspired to cartoon, and just might start working on some things. Who knows.

What's Next?

Probably go back to working on my humor book, and dabble in the field of cartooning. Also should work on my short sketch comedy film and short satirical humor play. Funny is the only thing I have, people.