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EQUIPMENT:
Corners indicate 10”x14”standard placemat size
Neal McDonald 2010; this document is in the public domain.
Fox and Geese
a 10-minute board game for two players
You will need 14 goose markers, and one more,
for the fox, that is different from the others.
THE STORY:
The fox is chasing the geese. The geese hate
the fox. The fox can kill any goose, but the
geese, working together, can kill the fox.
HOW TO PLAY:
The geese start on the black spots, and the
fox starts on the gray one. The spot colors
don't affect play; they just help set up.
Players take turns moving one marker along
one line to an adjacent spot.
The fox “eats” a goose by jumping over it
into an empty space-- like in Checkers. After
the jump, that goose is removed from the board.
More than one goose may be eaten per turn.
If the fox can kill a goose, it must!
It is a mean old fox.
WINNING:
The fox player wins by eating 6 geese.
The goose player wins by “trapping” the fox,
which they do by arranging themselves
around the fox so that it cannot move.
HINTS:
It is much harder to win as the geese; players
of equal skill should take turns playing the
fox. Geese should stay together, move in waves,
and be ready to sacrifice one of their own
to force the fox into unsafe areas.
HISTORY:
This game is very old, but no one knows how old.
It is described in the Grettis Saga, which
was written in Iceland around 1300, and it is
a relative of the Celtic and Norse family of
Tafl games, which go back to the stone age.