Mad Dog

Object
The object of the game is to be the first player to get all of the Mothers from your tribe to the Market, the Well, and then to the Kennel. The first player to have all Mothers finish the course takes control of the 'Mad Dog', which can destroy other Mothers that haven't finished their chores. The size of winning player's win is increased for each victim of the Mad Dog.
An additional feature of the game is the ability to customize some of the parameters of the game to fit the players' desire for playing time and luck-to-strategy balance. The rules describe the 'basic' game, and the settable parameters are described near the end.

Players
2-4 players, age 7 and up.

Equipment
A chess/checker board. The four squares one away from the corners on opposite sides are specially named. Going clockwise from one corner, they are Home, the Kennel, the Market, the Well. (Home - A7, Well - H2, Market - A2, Kennel - H7)

Two 6-sided dice.

A set of Icehouse pieces from Looney Labs. Each player will need a single stash (all the pieces of one color), but a maximum of 5 will be on the board at any one time. The number of pieces required per player is dependent on the number of players, as shown in this table:

• Each player's pieces are distinguishable from those of other players. This is usually done by color.
• Each player has five pieces each of three different point values. Point value is usually indicated by size; larger pieces are higher valued.
• It can be determined whether a given piece is 'pointing' in a particular horizontal (along the playing surface) direction or in no particular direction. Real Icehouse pieces are pyramidal and therefore can be lying down pointing in a certain direction or can be standing up to indicate no particular direction.

• The smallest piece represents a Mother with no supplies (on the way to the Market)
• The medium piece represents a Mother with food but no water (on the way to the Well).
• The largest piece represents a Mother with both food and water (on the way to the Kennel).

	Small	Medium	Large
Standing
Lying Down

The Board

Start of Game
All pieces start off the board.
Decide order of play.

Turn
Roll both dice and take two moves as indicated. Each move consists of one of your Mothers performing the number of steps indicated on one of the dice. As in backgammon, the number rolled on each die can be used by different pieces or the same piece, but the move indicated by each die must be legal. (Note: 1 turn = 2 moves; 1 move = 1-6 steps)

• A Mother may step from one square to another only if it is lying down and pointing at that square.
• Each orientation change (standing up, lying down, or turning in place either 90, 180, or 270° while lying down) also counts as a step. A Mother can perform only one orientation change per move in a given square. This prevents wasting big numbers just to land on vulnerable enemy Mothers. A Mother may perform multiple orientation changes in a single square in one turn as long as the two changes are for different moves.
• Every Mother starts her first move from Home. Putting a Mother (in any orientation) on the Home square counts as the Mother's first step.
• Only a small piece may end a move on or pass through the Market. Only a medium may end a move on or pass through the Well. Only a large piece may end a move on or pass through the Kennel. Only one piece of any one color can occupy the Home, Market, Well, or Kennel squares at a time.
  

Here are two examples of a Mother using a die roll of 5 for its first move.

Blocking
To prevent being pushed (see below), multiple pieces owned by the same player can occupy the same square. The number and orientation of pieces in a square determine how vulnerable they are to enemy attacks.

• If a square is occupied by a single Mother or by two, both lying down, an enemy Mother can land there (and 'push' the current occupants).
• If a square is occupied by three lying down Mothers or one standing and one lying down Mother, the square is partially blocked -- an enemy Mother cannot end its move there but may pass through the square (including changing orientation).
• If a square is occupied by any stronger force, the square is totally blocked, and enemy Mothers may not even pass through.
• Only opponent Mothers are subject to Blocking rules. Mothers from the same tribe (pieces of the same color) can pass through or land on partially or totally blocked squares freely.
• If the first few players all roll double threes and each sets up a totally block square one square from home, thus depriving the next player of any legal moves, the next player (the one with no moves) and subsequent players are automatically declared the winner (5 points to the winner(s) and 0 points to the first few players, in a tournament).

The easy way to calculate the vulnerability of the Mothers in a square is to assign any lying down pieces a value of 1 and any standing pieces a value of 2. The total occupying value determines the vulnerability of the Mothers in the square.
Note: The sizes of the pieces don't matter for blocking considerations.

	<3 - Vulnerable Enemy may land and 'push'.
	=3 - Partially Blocked Enemy may pass through but may not end a move.
	>3 - Totally Blocked Enemy may not even pass through.

Pushing
If a Mother ends a move (not necessarily a turn) in a square occupied by one or more vulnerable enemy Mothers (see Blocking rules), the Mothers are 'pushed' to other squares as decided by the owner of the newly arriving Mother. The number of squares the current occupants are moved is....

 1 +1 if the new piece ends it move standing up
    +1 if the old piece is lying down
    +1 if the new piece is bigger than the old piece

• Pushed pieces keep their orientation.
• Multi-square pushes do not have to be in a straight line.
• If a pushed piece ends up in an occupied square, those pieces also get pushed (the initial pushee becomes the new pusher).
• Pushed pieces follow the blocking and other movement rules. They may not be pushed onto a partially blocked square nor onto or through a totally blocked square if the current occupants are a different color. Nor may pushed pieces be pushed onto one of the corner squares if a piece of the same color is already there.
• If there are no legal squares on which to push an opponent the full distance, the push distance is reduced by just enough to make the push possible. If there are no (non-zero) pushes possible, then the attacker (the piece whose turn it is) may not move onto the square to begin with.
• A push may retrace squares, but a piece may not be pushed onto the same square it started from. For instance, a four-square push could be north-south-east-south but not north-east-south-west.

Example: On Grey's turn he rolls a 2 on one of the dice and decides to go after Black's pieces. He moves as shown. At the end of the move he is in Black's square. Grey gets to push each piece 2 squares in any direction (1 +1 because they're each lying down). He decides to move one of the pieces north two squares. He moves the other piece west one square and north one square. Since Black's piece lands on a square occupied by one of White's pieces, Black gets to push the white piece one square. She decides to push it one square north. (All pieces in this example are the same size.)
Example: Grey sure would like to move into the Market, currently occupied by one of Black's (bigger, standing) pieces by using his lying down piece and a roll of 2 as shown. If he did, he would push Black's piece only one square. Because it would be illegal for the black piece to end a move on either of the squares a distance of one away from the corner (see 'blocking' rules above), it is illegal for Grey to move his piece into the corner in the first place.

Picking up Food and Water
As mentioned earlier, the different sized pieces represent achievement of various goals. All small pieces are trying to reach the Market to pick up some food. All medium pieces are trying to get to the Well for some water. All large pieces are Mothers that have finished their chores and are on the way to the Kennel to let the Mad Dog loose. In order to change from small to medium, a piece must end a move standing up on the Market. In order to change from medium to large, a piece must end a move standing up on the Well.

• Extra steps may be wasted (in these cases only).
• Only one piece of any one color can occupy the Market, Well, or Kennel at a time.
• If an enemy piece is already occupying the Market, Well, or Kennel, it can be pushed to another square. (Push first; then change size.)

Example:Here is an example of a piece getting to the Market on a 4, picking up some food (growing), and leaving with a 5.

Releasing the Mad Dog
A Mother that has finished her chores (a large piece) that stands up at the Kennel is removed from the board. As with the Well and the Market, if there is already a Mother there, it can be pushed to another square. The first player to stand his last Mother up at the Kennel is the winner of the game and now controls the Mad Dog. The last piece stood up at the Kennel is used to represent the Dog.

• If a player stands his last piece on the Kennel (and gets the Mad Dog) as the first move in a turn, the Mad Dog still gets to use the second move.
• The Mad Dog follows the same movement rules as regular pieces with a few exceptions:
  • It cannot be pushed.
  • It can pass through or end a move on the Market, Well, Home, or Kennel.
  • When the Mad Dog pushes other pieces it also reduces their size by one This size reduction represents a Mother giving the Mad Dog food or water in order to distract it enough to make an escape.
  • Change the size of the victim, then push. For the sake of calculating push distance, the Mad Dog is a large piece.
  • An unladen Mother (small piece) that is a Mad Dog victim is eaten. A destroyed piece increases the size of the win for the controller of the Mad Dog. (I won and got 3 victims.) Any destroyed pieces do NOT restart the game. They're history, gone, kaput.
  • Any piece that is reduced in size will have to go back to the appropriate corner squares to replenish their supplies (small to Market; medium to the Well).
  • If a Mother decides to end a move on or is pushed onto the square where the Mad Dog is, it is reduced (or eaten) and then pushed the number of squares that the Mad Dog would have pushed it if the dog had done the landing (controlled by the Mad Dog).

Example:Black is controlling the Mad Dog. One of her dice is a 2, so she decides to go after Grey's large piece. First, the grey piece is reduced from a large to a medium. Next, it is pushed 3 squares (1 +1 because the Mad Dog is bigger +1 because it's lying down). Black pushes the grey piece onto the square with two of White's pieces. The grey piece (now a medium) can push the small piece 3 squares (1 +1 grey bigger +1 white lying), and it can push White's medium piece 2 (1 +1 white lying). It decides to push the medium piece east one and south one and push the small piece onto the Mad Dog. White's small piece is destroyed (bigger win for Black).

Another Example:This is similar to the previous example. After reducing Grey's large piece to a medium, Black can push the piece 2 squares (1 +1 bigger). Grey is pushed onto the white piece. He can push it 2 squares (1 +1 grey standing) onto the Mad Dog. In this case, a medium piece is reduced to a small and then pushed 2 squares (1 +1 Mad Dog bigger) as though Black's Mad Dog just landed there. Just to rile things up, Black pushes the (now small) white piece back from where it came. Now it's Whites turn to push Grey. White could now push Grey the 2 squares (1 +1 white standing) onto the Mad Dog. White, however predicts that Black would just push Grey's piece back onto the same square again and Grey would push White's small piece to its demise. To avoid this, White pushes Grey's piece east and north.

End of Move Timing
Having the Mad Dog roaming about and allowing Mothers to get pushed onto the Mad Dog, possibly at their destination corner (Well, Market, or Kennel) can lead to some confusing situations. Here is the order of the actions that occur at the end of a Mother's move, either as part of the owners turn or as part of some other player's push.

1. Get attacked by the Mad Dog (reduced or destroyed).
2. Push enemy Mothers (not the Mad Dog) to other squares.
3. Get pushed by Mad Dog.
4. Pick up food or water (grow) if still at the Well or Market or leave the board or let loose the Mad Dog at the Kennel.

Tournament or Multi-Game Scoring
In a single game, the winner is the first player to stand each of his Mothers up on the Kennel - everyone else loses. The number of other Mothers taken by the Mad Dog can be used to differentiate the magnitude of various wins. For each game, each player gets points equal to the number of Mothers that finished the course. Additionally, the winner gets an extra five points plus one point for each other Mother destroyed (not just reduced). This provides non-winners with motivation to throw other non-winners at the Mad Dog.

Example: In a three player game, Black won and was able to eat one white Mother and no grey ones.

Grey	4 points (all Mothers finished course)
White	3 points
Black	4 (for the Mothers) +5 for winning +1 victim = 10 points

Beginning Tactics
A lot of time during games, especially with beginners, is used by players trying to figure out how to keep a block together given a particular roll. Here are some standard moves worth remembering/memorizing. These standard moves even consider getting a standing piece to a square first to get the longer push.

From an up-down Partial Block (one lying down piece, x, and one standing piece, y)

• Doubles of n (greater than 1)
        x forward n-1, stand. y lie down, forward n-1. (Partial block)
• Roll of n and n+1 (n > 1)
        x forward n-1, stand. y lie down, forward n-1, stand. (Total block)
     or
        y down 90 degrees to x, forward n-1, stand. x turn toward y, forward n-1. (Partial block with 90 degree turn)
• Roll of n and n+2 (any n)
        y lie down, forward n, stand. x forward n. (Partial block)

• Doubles of n (n > 2)
        both x and y down, forward n-2, stand. (Total block)
• Roll of n and n+1 (n > 1):
        x down, forward n-1. y down, forward n-1, stand. (Partial block).
• Roll of n and n+2:
        (not really all that useful)

Settable Parameters
Some of the rules can be modified slightly to suit the players' desired playing time and balance between strategy and luck.

• Pieces Per Player: Any number of pieces from two to five can be used for any number of players. More pieces make the board more crowded, thus making keeping pieces safe and blocking strategic squares more important. Of course, more pieces lead toa longer game. I actually prefer four player games with four or five pieces per player.
• Location of Target Squares: The Home, Well, Market, and Kennel squares can be moved. The most reasonable locations for Home are A8, A7, or B7. The other named squares are usually, but not necessarily, moved to keep the board symmetric. Moving Home away from the corner leads to less congestion at the very start of the game. Moving the Well and Market into the corners increases the strategic importance of setting up a blocked square on the row between them, thus making other players take longer routes between those squares. In general moving the names squares away from the corners shortens the game. The game could be given a whole new feel by moving the target squares to other squares such as, say, the square just clockwise of center on each side.
• Ferocity of the Mad Dog: The game can be shortened by having the Mad Dog reduce the size of enemy pieces by two or three at a time, as opposed to the standard one.
• Mad Dog Movement Restrictions: Just how much strength should it take to protect a square full of Mothers from a Mad Dog attack? Do the standard partial and total block limits apply to the Mad Dog as well, or can Mad Dog land on a partially blocked square? It would definitely shorten the game if the Mad Dog could land on partially blocked squares (good for beginners), but it would also be one more rule to be learned (bad for beginners). Raising the strength needed to partially or totally block a square from the Mad Dog by a point (or two or three or twenty-seven) may be desirable for non-beginners that none-the-less want a shorter game. Any changes would apply to blocking the square from the Mad Dog only -- not other Mothers.

The table below gives some sets of values for these parameters. The 'Standard' values match those given through the rest of this document. 'Beginning' values concentrate more on keeping the action going and keeping the game from dragging on too long. 'Tournament' values place a greater emphasis on strategic skill but make for a longer game. Notice that the target squares do no have to be arranged symmetrically, as shown in 'My Faves'. Also note that with 'My Faves' two standing Mothers are still safe from the Mad Dog, but one standing and one lying down are vulnerable to being attacked. Feel free to use the 'Your Faves' column to keep track of the values you like/use the most.

History/Design Philosophy
So what were some of the influences and goals, both minor and major, that went into shaping the rules for this games as they are here?

It all started with a desire to create yet another game that could be played with Icehouse pieces from Looney Labs. It would be nice if the new game took advantage of the stacking ability of the new plastic version of the pieces, but that was fairly low on the list of priorities. Using the pieces' ability to stand or to point in various directions was a must. So was taking advantage of the various sizes of pieces.

Before any details could be worked out, some major questions had to be answered. The first concern was the overall game type. There already exist quite a few games played with Icehouse pieces. All of the board games so far developed, Martian Go, Trice, DNA, Gridlock, Igloo, Martian Chess, and Ice Chess are strategy based with little luck involved. Included in the thses games are Icehouse variants of Chess and Go; what other popular games or game types are there that seem reasonable to create with Icehouse pieces? I wanted to stay away from card games; Zarcana and Pantopia already covered that. Of the more popular games, the ones that seemed the most underrepresented by the current stable of Icehouse games are the race games. Along the race game lines, Backgammon and Pachisi seemed like good starting points for development of a new set of rules. From those games, what should be kept as-is, what should be changed for use with Icehouse pieces, and what should be changed just for fun?

• Number of Players Backgammon - 2; Pachisi - 4; Icehouse pieces - 4. We'll have to see how that turns out.
• Path Backgammon is basically a race game in which each players' pieces start race in opposite directions around the board, essentially a one-dimensional path. Pachisi is a one dimensional loop with players entering and exiting at different points. The path length for Pachisi varies on from 72 to 108 points. Simpler race games also use a one-dimensional path. Perhaps the new game could use a two-dimensional board that allows each player to determine the most strategically advantageous path. For the sake of comparison, the Backgammon path is 24 points long.
• Number of Pieces per Player Backgammon - 15; Pachisi - 4; Icehouse - 15, or maybe 5 or 3.
• Turn Roll dice and move pieces.
• Other Things In Backgammon, landing on a single piece to send it back to the beginning and doubling men up on a point to prevent being hit show some promise. There is also a sort of blocking in Pachisi.

After this, elements of another game were added. The book The Way to Play, by The Diagram Group, mentions a game called "Hyena Chase", which is popular in northern Africa. This is a one-dimensional race game, with all players going in the same direction. The first player to get his piece (mother) from the start (village) to the far end (well) and back again gets to control the Hyena. This piece can roam the path trying to eat the other players' pieces (thus increasing the magnitude of the win). This sounded like an interesting mechanic to add to the new game. The first order of business was naming the significant spaces. In addition to the 'Well', the 'Market' wasn't too difficult, but just where does one go find a wild Hyena to let loose to ravage the countryside? To make the game just a little less region-specific, we changed Hyena to Mad Dog. Where does one find dogs? At the Kennel of course. Having the Mad Dog eat pieces the very first time it attacks them seemed severe. Using a reduction in size to denote bribing the dog with food or water seemed in keeping with the theme of the game and with the use of Icehouse pieces.

Back to Backgammon's hitting and blocking. How much should it take to block a square? Could two pieces lying down protect themselves? How about three or four? To provide a motivation for using a step to stand up at the end of a move, it was decided to make standing pieces more impervious to attack. Two standing pieces could completely block a square. Just below that, one standing and one lying down piece should at least be safe from attack. To add a little spice it was decided to expand Backgammon's two levels of vulnerability (vulnerable/blocked) to three by adding spaces that the enemy couldn't even pass through. This was deemed to be safe (i.e. non-game-unbalancing) because the opponent(s) could always take alternate routes to avoid blocked squares. The less than/equal to/greater than scheme made calculating vulnerability fairly easy. What about when a vulnerable piece is attacked? Backgammon's rule of sending the piece all the way back to the beginning seems a bit severe. Having the distance that attacked pieces are pushed (to use Mad Dog lingo) dependent on the size and orientation (standing/lying down) of the pieces involved provided more motivation both to use the pieces' ability to stand up and the end of a move and to finish the course in a timely manner.

Bugs and Known Issues
Theme: We kept the some of the terminology from Hyena Chase. You still have to go to the Well. Instead of 'washing clothes', your Mother is picking up water. Any culture that has to go to the Well for water would probably also need to go to the Market for food. I'm not so sure that they would then got to the Kennel to release a Mad Dog, however.
During game development, a number of other themes were tried:

• Your Stoners have to go the Bank for money and their Supplier's House for some grass before going to the Police Station to alert the Police Chief about the activities of the other Stoners. Seemed uncharacteristally hostile.
• Your Processes need to go to the Terminal Server and the Math Coprocessor before releasing a Virus on other Processes.
• Your Mice have to go to the Refrigerator for food and to the Sink for water before waking the Cat to go eat the other Mice.
• Completely Generic: Your guys go to the first and second goals to change to medium and big guys and then to the third goal to release the really big guy, which goes after the other guys.

Length of Game: Backgammon has 24 points along the path and most of the pieces start part way along the path. On an 8x8 board, each Mother will have to use 43 moves to complete the course at a minimum. This doesn't include standing up, being pushed back, or having to go around blocked squares. A four player game with five Mothers per player could take quite a while (usually almost two hours during playtesting). Maybe the number of Mothers per player could be a function of the number of players in the game. (e.g. MothersPerPlayer = 7 - NumberOfPlayers) Note: The Mothers per player idea was adopted in version 2 of the rules. The repositioning of the corner squares reduced the minimum number of moves by 4.

Number of Rules
During playtesting we had to add some extra rules just to cover situations as they arose (e.g. no more than one piece of a given color on the corner squares). We've tried to create a short list of general rules to cover as many of the special purpose ones as possible, but there still seems to be quite a few.

Possibility of a Double Block: In a game with three or four players, if the first two players both roll a double 3 on their first turns, they could set up blocks on the two squares adjacent to Home. This would prevent other players from being able to play. To prevent the first two players from doing this, such a situation could be declared a win for the third player and, if present, fourth player (0, 0, 5, and 5 points for the players respectively in tournament scoring). Note: Version 2 of the rules added the triple-block rule to the Turn section.

Parameters: There are many little things that could be tweaked in the rules:

• The number and orientation of pieces required to partially or totally block a square.
• The distance of pushes.
• Whether multiple pieces of the same color can occupy the corner squares.
• How severe a Mad Dog attack is (can a Mad Dog kill a medium or large piece in one bite?).
• Can the Mad Dog land on partially or totally blocked squares?
• Can you waste steps on the corner squares or do you have to hit them exactly?
• Number of dice and number of faces on each die.
• Size of board. An 8x8 seems just about right for two players. It might get quite crowded with more players.
• Using Backgammon-type doubles or acey-deucey rules.
• Tournament scoring: points for a win and points per Mother eaten.

Revision History

Version	Date	Description
1	Nov 5, 1999	Initial Version
2	Nov 12, 1999	Make use of some of the possible rules to speed the game up. Number of pieces per player depends on number of players. Moved Home, Market, Well and Kennel in from the corners (and added the triple-block rule).
3	Nov 24, 1999	Add Settable Parameters Section.
3.1	Jul 22, 2001	Very minor wording changes.

Credits
Initial Concept: Ryan McGuire
Rules Development: Ryan McGuire and Dan Isaac
Playtesting (so far): Ryan McGuire, Dan Isaac, Clayton Castle, Scott McCoy, Jennifer McGuire, Joshua McGuire
Icehouse Pieces designed by:Andrew Looney
Other Icehouse Games designed by: Andrew and Kristin Looney, Jacob and John and Kory and Kristin, and many others
Comments and Suggestions are Welcome -- email Ryan