Pentago is a two-player abstract strategy game

Abstract strategy game

An abstract strategy game is a strategy game, aiming to minimise luck, and without a theme. Almost all abstract strategy games will conform to the strictest definition of: a board or card game, in which there is no hidden information, no non-deterministic elements , in which two players or teams...

 invented by Tomas Flodén. The Swedish company Mindtwister has the rights of developing and commercializing the product.

The game is played on a 6×6 board divided into four 3×3 sub-boards (or quadrants). Taking turns

Turn-based strategy

A turn-based strategy game is a strategy game where players take turns when playing...

, the two players place a marble of their color (either black or white) onto an unoccupied space on the board, and then rotate one of the sub-boards by 90 degrees either clockwise or anti-clockwise. A player wins by getting five of their marbles in a vertical, horizontal or diagonal row (either before or after the sub-board rotation in their move). If all 36 spaces on the board are occupied without a row of five being formed then the game is a draw.

There is also a 3-4 player version called Pentago XL. The board is made of 9 3x3 boards, and there are 4 colours (red, yellow, green and blue) instead of the basic 2.

Awards

• Game of the Year 2005 in Sweden
  Sweden
  Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
  
  
• Game of the Year 2006 in France
  France
  The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
  
  
• Award winner in Mensa
  Mensa International
  Mensa is the largest and oldest high-IQ society in the world. It is a non-profit organization open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a standardised, supervised IQ or other approved intelligence test...
  
  Mind Games 2006 Review

So far Pentago has won 8 major awards, lastly Game of the Year 2007, by Creative Child Magazine.

External Links

• Play pentago online: http://www.pentago-online.com/
• Amateur pentago online: http://www.pentago.logrys.org.ua/