Tako Judo

Overview

What ABG knows about this game

Tako Judo – the timeless sport of octopus wrestling – is an abstract strategy game for 2 to 4 players in which the object is to prevent your opponent(s) from being able to move. Played on a 64-square board (for two players) or a 100-square board (for three or four players), each player controls the head and eight tentacles of an octopus. The head takes up a 2x2 square area, and each tentacle takes up one square. Any piece can move like a Chess queen (any distance along an open orthogonal or diagonal line, but without jumping) provided that there is also a clear line of sight between that piece's original location and the head piece for the octopus to which it belongs. A player whose octopus is no longer able to effectively move its head or any tentacles (either move them at all or only harmlessly move a tentacle back and forth between a couple of squares) is pinned and eliminated from the game. Last octopus to move freely controls the sea and wins the game.