Issue 18 - Winter 2020
Avalam Bitaka, or just Avalam, is a game designed by Philippe Deweys of Brussels. Avalam was first produced in 1996, and the copy photographed here was published by SC.JP Fils.Fils of Belgium.
Avalam is a stacking game on an irregularly shaped board consisting of an orthogonal array of 49 depressions. The pieces fit snugly into the depressions; the pieces in turn have depressions on their top surfaces, into which other pieces can fit and stack. The rules are very simple. The 48 pieces—24 dark and 24 light—are arranged in a checkerboard fashion on the board at the outset, with the central depression empty. One player is assigned dark, the other light. A piece or stack of pieces can move one square in any direction, orthogonally or diagonally. For simplicity, a single piece is a stack—a stack of one. A stack is moved as a whole, and must be moved onto another stack, not an empty space. Either player can move any stack, regardless of the colours of the pieces; and on top of any stack, regardless of the colours of the pieces. The key rule is that no stack can be more than five pieces high. Players continue until no more moves can be made. At this point, the winner is the person with the most pieces of their colour showing on the the tops of individual stacks.
As a variant, the board starts empty and the players take turns placing pieces of either colour onto vacant spaces. I wonder how the game would work with a random start, as it common with Tzaar, for example?
Avalam is a fine game. The rules are probably at least as simple as those of any other stacking game. An outstanding feature of the game is that the colours of pieces do not matter, except for scoring at the end. The maximum stack size of five echoes the stack-height limitation in Sid Sackson's Focus. A counterpoint to the simplicity of the rules is the complexity of the board shape. I suspect that the shape was deliberately chosen, because strategies may differ between "concave" and "convex" parts of the board. The best and most succinct review of Avalam Bitaka that I have found is Stephen Tavener's in BoardGameGeek.
We have covered other stacking games in Abstract Games, including Bashne (AG1 and several other issues), Lasca (AG11), Emergo (AG13), and Neue Dame (this issue). These games are all versions of column checkers, although other types of stacking game, including Tumbling Down (AG6) and Takat (AG10 and AG11), were submitted for our game design competitions. Avalam Bitaka itself is a non-checkers stacking game. The stacking mechanism is interesting, as it extends basically two-dimensional games into a third dimension. ~ KH
Avalam is a stacking game on an irregularly shaped board consisting of an orthogonal array of 49 depressions. The pieces fit snugly into the depressions; the pieces in turn have depressions on their top surfaces, into which other pieces can fit and stack. The rules are very simple. The 48 pieces—24 dark and 24 light—are arranged in a checkerboard fashion on the board at the outset, with the central depression empty. One player is assigned dark, the other light. A piece or stack of pieces can move one square in any direction, orthogonally or diagonally. For simplicity, a single piece is a stack—a stack of one. A stack is moved as a whole, and must be moved onto another stack, not an empty space. Either player can move any stack, regardless of the colours of the pieces; and on top of any stack, regardless of the colours of the pieces. The key rule is that no stack can be more than five pieces high. Players continue until no more moves can be made. At this point, the winner is the person with the most pieces of their colour showing on the the tops of individual stacks.
As a variant, the board starts empty and the players take turns placing pieces of either colour onto vacant spaces. I wonder how the game would work with a random start, as it common with Tzaar, for example?
Avalam is a fine game. The rules are probably at least as simple as those of any other stacking game. An outstanding feature of the game is that the colours of pieces do not matter, except for scoring at the end. The maximum stack size of five echoes the stack-height limitation in Sid Sackson's Focus. A counterpoint to the simplicity of the rules is the complexity of the board shape. I suspect that the shape was deliberately chosen, because strategies may differ between "concave" and "convex" parts of the board. The best and most succinct review of Avalam Bitaka that I have found is Stephen Tavener's in BoardGameGeek.
We have covered other stacking games in Abstract Games, including Bashne (AG1 and several other issues), Lasca (AG11), Emergo (AG13), and Neue Dame (this issue). These games are all versions of column checkers, although other types of stacking game, including Tumbling Down (AG6) and Takat (AG10 and AG11), were submitted for our game design competitions. Avalam Bitaka itself is a non-checkers stacking game. The stacking mechanism is interesting, as it extends basically two-dimensional games into a third dimension. ~ KH