Crossings is a two-player abstract strategy board game

Board game

A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...

 invented by Robert Abbott. The rules were published in Sid Sackson

Sid Sackson

Sid Sackson was a significant American board game designer and collector.His most popular creation is probably the business game Acquire...

's A Gamut of Games

A Gamut of Games

A Gamut of Games, written by Sid Sackson and first published in 1969, contains rules for a large number of paper and pencil, card, and board games. Many of the games in the book had never before been published...

. Crossings was the precursor to Epaminondas

Epaminondas (game)

Epaminondas is an abstract strategy board game invented by Robert Abbott and originally introduced in Sid Sackson's A Gamut of Games as Crossings. While the original version used an 8x8 checkerboard, the current game uses a 12x14 board and different rules for capture...

, which uses a larger board and expanded rules.

Setup

This is the starting position of Crossings.

Turns

• Play alternates with each player making one movement on a turn.
• Red takes the first turn.

Movement

A group is a series of one or more same-colored stones adjacent to one another in a line. (diagonal, horizontal, or vertical) A stone may belong to one or more groups.

• A player may move a single stone, an entire group, or a subgroup.
• A group consisting of a single stone may move one space diagonally or orthogonally into an empty square.
• A group must move along the line which defines it. It may move a number of spaces equal to the number of pieces in that group.
• When part of a group is moved (a subgroup), it must move along the line which defines it. It may move a number of spaces equal to the number of pieces in the subgroup.
• When a subgroup is moved it must involve one of the end stones.
• Pieces may not move onto an occupied square.

Capturing an enemy stone

• If the first stone in a moving group encounters a single enemy stone, the group's movement stops there, and the enemy stone is captured.
• If the first stone in a moving group encounters an end stone of an opponent's group, it can capture that stone if the opponent's group is smaller. The turn ends.
• If it cannot capture the end stone because the opponent's group is the same size or larger, it is not allowed to move on to that square.

End of the game

• A player potentially wins the game if they get a stone on the home row, or row farthest from their side. If their opponent cannot get a stone of their own onto the first player's home row in their next move, the first player wins. Otherwise, those stones are "locked"; they cannot be moved or captured. The next attempt at crossing, as this is called, will determine the winner (unless it, too, is immediately followed by a counter-crossing, and so on.)

• The game is a draw if no player can complete the objective. Draws are very rare.