Slither

Slither (by Corey L. Clark)

Slither is a dynamic connection game for two players, White and Black. Slither was conceived of as a simple solution to the problem of crosscuts or impasses in a square-board connection game. Advanced Slither was devised as a way to deal with some gameplay issues of Slither at high levels of play.

Neither version of Slither can end in a draw. Slither was designed by Corey L. Clark in 2010 and later revised by his invention of Advanced Slither in 2018.

For the new player, either version of Slither will open up a world of perplexing tactical and strategic possibilities, with a minimal set of rules.

Rules

Materials

Any square board as well as a supply of stones in two colors with enough stones for each player to cover half the board. You may also find something to designate a player’s edges.

Objective

The objective of Slither is to create an unbroken orthogonal chain of pieces connecting your designated board edges. Black aims to connect the top and bottom, and White aims to connect the left and right-hand sides.

Gameplay

The game is played on the intersections of the board. Starting with Black, on a turn, a player must place a stone of their color on an empty intersection of the board.

A player may also optionally move a stone of their color which is already on the board to an orthogonally or diagonally adjacent intersection. These actions may be performed in any order, but at the conclusion of the turn, any two diagonally adjacent stones of the player’s color must be orthogonally adjacent to a like-colored common stone.

Forced Passing

In the (rather unlikely) event that a player has no legal move on their turn, they must pass their turn. Passing is otherwise strictly prohibited.

Advanced Slither

Seasoned Slither players or even novices may want to try an advanced form of Slither which adds a condition on stone movement. This form of the game both adds a more static character to play—suggesting perhaps a greater strategic scope—and adds many tactical dynamics absent from the original. Advanced Slither, like its predecessor, cannot end in a draw.

Additional Rules

Movement:
In Advanced Slither, stones must always be moved prior to placement. A stone may only move if, prior to its movement, it is in a group (orthogonally contiguous set) of stones consisting of both players’ colors.

Pie Rule:
Due to its shown lack of efficacy in classic Slither, the Pie Rule appears here. This rule reduces the advantage of Black having an extra stone on the board. On their first turn, the White player may choose to play as Black instead of making their own move using the white pieces.

Strategy

A good strategy in Slither is to create flexible shapes for yourself while exploiting the inflexible shapes of your opponent.

Fig. 2 shows some examples of very inflexible shapes for Black which White is exploiting by threatening to cut through. Generally, inflexibility comes from having your stones spaced apart by one intersection. Stones a knight’s move apart are very flexible by contrast.

A good tactic in Slither is to split your movement and placement phase between two localities. If you can move a stone or place a stone in a position where it will take both a placement and movement by your opponent to counteract it, you’ll be able to use your other move to gain a local advantage somewhere else.

Advanced Slither Strategy

If you are playing Advanced Slither, there are also strategic concepts of:

• exploiting stones your opponent cannot make good use of, and
• attaching a large group of your own stones to them to “activate” these stones, allowing them to be moved in subsequent turns.

This is especially effective if you can pin these stones down so they cannot deactivate your stones by moving away from them.

Links

• Board Game Geek

© 2021 Corey Lapinas Clark