WYPS

Short story

The first version of the game was invented in 2002. The game was played with different rules on the Little Golem server. More than 20 variants and more than 800 players were played until the final rules were released.

Rules

WYPS is an abstract word game for two players.

Components

The game is played on triangular board with hexagonal squares. The rules are the same for all sizes of the board.

White’s first move is HIP

There are stones with letters. The stones have two different sides, each side representing one player. On each stone there is exactly one letter. The number of stones corresponds to the number of squares on the board (36 for size 8). At the beginning of the game, all the stones are in a bag.

Swap move

Each player draws five stones (five for size 8) from the bag. The black player can swap the stones between the players. All letters must always be swapped.

Gameplay

The players form words from their letters and from the letters on the board. If a player uses the opponent’s letters on the board, he turns one letter from these tiles to his own side. Instead of forming a word, it is possible to place only one letter from the rack on the board. At least one letter from the tray must be used in the turn. After the turn, up to seven letters are drawn from the tray (depending on the size of the board) if the bag is not empty. The first move is made by the white player. If the player forms the word in a straight line, she turns all used opponent’s letters to her own side.

Play continues with the next player.

Black player play move CHINA and turns over a stone.

White play move ARCH in a straight line and turns over all used oponent’s stones.

Goal of a game

The object of the game is to form a group of stones connected to all three sides of the board.

White plays DOES and connects all three sides of the board. This move is called atari (attack). Black’s move must break this connection.

Black’s move SEARCH interrupts White’s atari. And this black move is also an atari.

White plays the move CHILD. White used two letters from rack and two opponent’s stones. She can flip C or H to the white side. She decides to flip the letter H.

End of game

Play continues as long as a player’s group is not connected to all three sides of the board, and the opponent on his turn is unable to break it off. Note that the corners are considered to belong to the two adjacent sides.

White’s move FLED. After this move, black is not able to find the next move. Black gives up the game and White is the winner.

Variants on Little Golem

WYPS is played on Little Golem in multiple languages on sizes: 5,8,11 and 14.

There is also a numeric version where the letters are replaced by numbers. You must play even numbers or sequences of numbers.

Board sizes and letter distribution

WYPS can be played on any board sizes and in any language.

English

German

Spain

French

Italian

Japanese

Dutch

Polish

Russian

Greek

Czech

Slovak

WYPS for 4 players

The 4-player variant is a lot of fun. Players play together in pairs. Each of the four players has as many stones as in a two-player game. This means that, for example, on a board of size 8, each player has 5 stones. The start of the game is similar to a 2-player game. Players randomly select 4 sets of stones and players sequentially choose their set of stones in a counterclockwise order. The player who picked the stones last starts the game.

In a 4-player game, the Atari rule does not apply. This means that the connection does not have to be broken immediately. If one of the players no longer has stones, the game continues and that player passes their turn.

Important rule: players can talk out loud during the game and can analyze their moves together !

The game is very challenging because the end phase of the game when there are no more stones in the bag occurs very early.