Camelot

Mr.B and I have been looking at an interesting game called Camelot.

Camelot uses some of the ideas from chess and from draughts and was, in the words of its inventor, George S. Parker, “the best game in 2000 years”!

There are ‘men’ (pawns) and ‘knights’. Basic movement is like the King in chess, and capturing is more like draughts.

The GOAL is to place two pieces in the last two squares of your opponent’s side of the board (the CASTLE).

If you capture your opponent’s last piece, and you still have two pieces left, then you must win and so the game ends then.

There are four sorts of move:

  1. MOVE: Move like a King
  2. CANTER: Jump over one or more of your own pieces, changing direction if you want to
  3. JUMP CAPTURE: Jump over one or more of your opponent’s pieces, changing direction if you want to
  4. KNIGHT’S CHARGE (knights only): First CANTER then CAPTURE

The board is enormous:

.+
.+.+.+.+
.+.+.+.+.+
.+.+.+.+.+.+
+...+.+.+.+.
.+ n p p p p p p n.+
+.+ n p p p p n.+.
.+.+.+.+.+.+
+.+.+.+.+.+.
.+. N P P P P N +.+
+. N P P P P P P N +.
.+.+.+.+.+.+
+.+.+.+.+.+.
+.+.+.+ .+.
+.+.+.+ .
**

White's CASTLE is shown with asterisks (*).