Shibumi Spline+ rules

Spline+ is a simple N-in-a-row game that exploits the pyramidal stacking to guarantee a winner.

The board starts empty. Two players, White and Black, takes turns either:

Aim: A player wins by making a full line, orthogonally or diagonally, on any level. That is, lines on the 4x4 (board) level must be of length 4, lines on the 3x3 level must be of length 3, and lines on the 2x2 level must be of length 2.

The following diagrams show completed games won by White with 3-in-a-row (left) and Black with 2-in-a-row (right).

Shibumi Spline+ description

Spline+ is an extension of the Spline game where the users can, instead of adding a ball, move one of their balls, as long as it does not have more than one other ball resting on it. Both Spline and Spline+ are played on the Shibumi platform.

Shibumi is the essence of beauty, or elegance in its minimal form. A shibumi object may appear simple but will reward the viewer with hidden depths as it is explored over time. Shibumi is simplicity hiding complexity.

Games and puzzles based on square pyramidal stackings have existed at least since Edouard Lucas' cannon-ball stacking problem of 1875. The most famous 4x4 square pyramidal game is Pylos (published by Gigamic). Shibumi is different due to the third ball colour, drop mechanism, different numbers of players, lack of a board gutter, and the fact that it's a system for playing many games rather than the embodiment of a single game. Some Shibumi games may be playable with a Pylos set but many will not.

Shibumi Spline+ credits

Spline+ was invented by Nestor Romeral Andres from NestorGames in 2011. It is based on the Shibumi platform invented by Cameron Browne in 2011.

The Jocly version of Spline+ was developed by Michel gutierrez (@_mig_), with graphic designs from Jérôme Choain (@jcfrog) and Cameron Browne.