Tigers and Goats which has origins from Nepal and South India is a two-player board game. The game is known as Bhag-Chal in Nepal and Aadu Puli Aatam in Tamil (South India) (also known as Meka Puli Aata in Telugu, Aadu Huli Aata in Kannada). Though Indian and Napalese versions use different board layouts, the game has same objective in both places. The game is asymmetric in that one player plays with 3/4 tigers and other player plays with 15/20 goats.
At the beginning all tigers are placed on the board and all goats are placed outside the board. The player playing for goats starts the game and places one goat on the board. The player playing for tigers simply moves one tiger. In the first phase players alternate turns to place goats on the board or, move tigers on the board. Once all goats are placed on the board, second phase starts in which both goats and tigers are moved. The objective for tigers is to capture all goats whereas objective for goats is to block all tigers so that it has no legal move left.
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Rules for tigers
- Can move to any adjacent free position.
- Can jump over a goat in any direction if there is an open space right adjacent to the goat and capture the goat in the process. Captured goat is removed from the board.
- Can capture goats during any of the two phases.
- In each turn only one goat can be captured.
- Can't jump over another tiger.
Rules for goats
- Goats can't move until all goats have been placed on the board.
- Can move to any adjacent free position in second phase.
- Can't jump over tigers or other goats.
The game is over when either, all goats are captured by the tigers, or the goats have blocked the tigers from being able to move.
If there is a stalemate and both players repeat the moves, the game ends in a draw if a particular position is repeated more than twice.
Credits: Animal Icons by Vecteezy