Focus (board Game)
''Focus'' is an abstract strategy board game, designed by Sid Sackson and first published in 1964 by Kosmos. The game has been re-published many times since, sometimes under the titles ''Domination'' or ''Dominio''. ''Focus'' won the 1981 Spiel des Jahres and Essen Feather awards. The game appears in Sackson's ''A Gamut of Games'' in the section ''New Battles on an Old Battlefield''. Gameplay Two to four players move stacks of one to five pieces around a checkerboard with the three squares in each corner removed, thus forming a 6×6 board with 1×4 extensions on each side. Stacks may move as many spaces as there are pieces in the stack. Players may only move a stack if the topmost piece in the stack is one of their pieces. When a stack lands on another stack, the two stacks merge; if the new stack contains more than five pieces, then pieces are removed from the bottom to bring it down to five. If a player's own piece is removed, they are kept and may be placed on the boa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sid Sackson
Sid Sackson (February 4, 1920 in Chicago – November 6, 2002) was an American board game designer and collector, best known as the creator of the business game ''Acquire''. Career Sackson's most popular creation is probably the business game ''Acquire''. Other games he designed include '' Can't Stop'' and ''Focus'' (''Domination''), which won the prestigious German Spiel des Jahres game design award in 1981. Other notable works include his books, especially ''A Gamut of Games'' and '' Card Games Around the World''; both titles include a large array of rules for games both new and old, and Sackson himself invented a number of the games covered by these works. For several years in the mid-1970s, Sid Sackson wrote a monthly column for ''Strategy & Tactics'' magazine called “Sackson on Games” in which he reviewed games (other than wargames). Sackson's book collection was arranged in groups of five books so he would know if a book was missing and which one it was. Sackson collec ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Checkerboard
A checkerboard (American English) or chequerboard (British English; see spelling differences) is a board of checkered pattern on which checkers (also known as English draughts) is played. Most commonly, it consists of 64 squares (8×8) of alternating dark and light color, typically green and buff (official tournaments), black and red (consumer commercial), or black and white (printed diagrams). An 8×8 checkerboard is used to play many other games, including chess, whereby it is known as a chessboard. Other rectangular square-tiled boards are also often called checkerboards. Games and puzzles using checkerboards Martin Gardner featured puzzles based on checkerboards in his November 1962 Mathematical Games column in Scientific American. A square checkerboard with an alternating pattern is used for games including: * Amazons * Chapayev * Chess and some of its variants (see chessboard) * Czech draughts * Draughts, also known as checkers * Fox games * Frisian draughts * Gounki * In ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Spiel Des Jahres Winners
Internationale Spieltage SPIEL, often called the Essen Game Fair after the city where it is held, is an annual four-day boardgame trade fair which is also open to the public held in October (Thursday to the following Sunday) at the Messe Essen exhibition centre in Essen, Germany. It began in 1983. With 1 021 exhibitors from 50 nations in 2016, SPIEL is the biggest fair for board games in the world. Many new games are released at the fair each year, especially (but not exclusively) European-style board games. At SPIEL board games are offered which are hard to find in retail because a lot of international and small exhibitors present their products. While the prices for buying the games at the fair do not tend to be significantly lower than those in retail, the games are typically available sooner than in regular board game shops, come with promotional materials (mostly extra cards or tokens with a few more game mechanics, but also T-shirts and similar merchandise) and it is an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Abstract Strategy Games
Abstract strategy games admit a number of definitions which distinguish these from strategy games in general, mostly involving no or minimal narrative theme, outcomes determined only by player choice (with no randomness), and perfect information. For example, Go is a pure abstract strategy game since it fulfills all three criteria; chess and related games are nearly so but feature a recognizable theme of ancient warfare; and Stratego is borderline since it is deterministic, loosely based on 19th-century Napoleonic warfare, and features concealed information. Definition Combinatorial games have no randomizers such as dice, no simultaneous movement, nor hidden information. Some games that do have these elements are sometimes classified as abstract strategy games. (Games such as '' Continuo'', Octiles, '' Can't Stop'', and Sequence, could be considered abstract strategy games, despite having a luck or bluffing element.) A smaller category of abstract strategy games manages to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Board Games Introduced In 1964
Board or Boards may refer to: Flat surface * Lumber, or other rigid material, milled or sawn flat ** Plank (wood) ** Cutting board ** Sounding board, of a musical instrument * Cardboard (paper product) * Paperboard * Fiberboard ** Hardboard, a type of fiberboard * Particle board, also known as ''chipboard'' ** Oriented strand board * Printed circuit board, in computing and electronics ** Motherboard, the main printed circuit board of a computer * A reusable writing surface ** Chalkboard ** Whiteboard Recreation * Board game **Chessboard **Checkerboard * Board (bridge), a device used in playing duplicate bridge * Board, colloquial term for the rebound statistic in basketball * Board track racing, a type of motorsport popular in the United States during the 1910s and 1920s * Boards, the wall around a bandy field or ice hockey rink * Boardsports * Diving board (other) Companies * Board International, a Swiss software vendor known for its business intelligence software tool ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hasbro
Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational conglomerate holding company incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Hasbro owns the trademarks and products of Kenner, Milton Bradley, Parker Brothers, and Wizards of the Coast, among others. As of August 2020 over 81.5% of its shares were held by large financial institutions. Among its products are ''Transformers'', ''G.I. Joe'', ''Power Rangers'', '' Rom the Space Knight'', ''Micronauts'', ''M.A.S.K.'', ''Monopoly'', ''Furby'', ''Nerf'', ''Twister'', and '' My Little Pony'', and with the Entertainment One acquisition in 2019, franchises like Peppa Pig and PJ Masks. The Hasbro brand also spawned TV shows to promote its products, such as '' Family Game Night'' on the Discovery Family network, a joint venture with Warner Bros. Discovery. History Hassenfeld Brothers Three Polish-Jewish brothers, Herman, Hillel, and Henry Hassenfeld, founded Hass ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. History Random House was founded in 1927 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer, two years after they acquired the Modern Library imprint from publisher Horace Liveright, which reprints classic works of literature. Cerf is quoted as saying, "We just said we were going to publish a few books on the side at random," which suggested the name Random House. In 1934 they published the first authorized edition of James Joyce's novel ''Ulysses'' in the Anglophone world. ''Ulysses'' transformed Random House into a formidable publisher over the next two decades. In 1936, it absorbed the firm of Smith and Haas—Robert Haas became the third partner until retiring and selling his share back to Cerf and Klopfer in 19 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Death Stacks
''Death Stacks'' is an abstract strategy board game for two players invented by Stephen Euin Cobb. ''Death Stacks'' can be classified as a variant of the game ''Focus'' by Sid Sackson, published in ''A Gamut of Games''. The Annual ''Death Stacks'' Tournament is held in Charlotte, North Carolina each summer and is hosted by the science fiction convention, ConCarolinas ConCarolinas is a three-day-long science fiction convention held once each year in Charlotte, North Carolina, hosted by ConCarolinas, Inc., a non-profit corporation. It hosts a variety of fandom related events and functions. Guests generally inc .... History The game was invented November 27, 2002. The U.S. Copyright Office granted it Registered Copyright status on January 21, 2004. The first tournament was held in 2004. A new tournament category was awarded for the first time in 2007. The trophy for "Best Artificial Intelligence Implementation of Death Stacks" was awarded (''in absentia'') to an AI programme ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Focus 01
Focus, or its plural form foci may refer to: Arts * Focus or Focus Festival, former name of the Adelaide Fringe arts festival in South Australia Film *''Focus'', a 1962 TV film starring James Whitmore * ''Focus'' (2001 film), a 2001 film based on the Arthur Miller novel * ''Focus'' (2015 film), a 2015 film about con artists Music * Focus (music), a musical technique also known as modal frame * Focus..., American music producer * Focus (band), Dutch progressive rock band Albums * ''Focus'' (Stan Getz album), 1961 jazz album * ''Focus'' (Bill Hardman album), 1984 jazz album * ''Focus'' (Jan Akkerman & Thijs van Leer album), 1985 * ''Focus'' (Cynic album), 1993 metal album * ''Focus'' (Chico Freeman album), 1994 jazz album * ''Focus'' (Souls of Mischief album), 1998 alternative hip-hop album * ''Focus'' (Holly Starr album), 2012 CCM album * ''Focus'' (Arthur Blythe album), 2002 jazz album * ''Focus'' (Diaura album), 2013 Japanese visual kei album Songs * "Focus" (Ar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kosmos (publisher)
Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co. is a media publishing house based in Stuttgart, Germany, founded in 1822 by Johann Friedrich Franckh. In the nineteenth century the company published the fairy tales of Wilhelm Hauff as well as works by Wilhelm Waiblinger and Eduard Mörike. The "Friends of Nature Club" () was set up in 1903 in response to booming public interest in science and technology, and by 1912 100,000 members were receiving its monthly magazine "Cosmos" (''Kosmos''). The company moved into publishing books on popular science topics under the brands ''Franckh’sche Verlagshandlung'' and ''KOSMOS'', including successful non-fiction guidebooks by Hanns Günther and Heinz Richter. Children's fiction and Kosmos-branded science experimentation kits were introduced in the 1920s. Kosmos's current output includes non-fiction, children's books, science kits and German-style board games. Many of their games are translated into English and published by Thames & Kosmos. Their l ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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A Gamut Of Games
''A Gamut of Games'' is an innovative book of games written by Sid Sackson and first published in 1969. It contains rules for a large number of paper and pencil, card, and board games. Many of the games in the book had never before been published. It is considered by many hobbyist gamers to be an essential text for anyone interested in abstract strategy games, and a number of the rules were later expanded into full-fledged published board games. Some of the games which were later sold separately include Focus, Property and Origins of World War I; Robert Abbott expanded his game Crossings, published here, into the more-refined title Epaminondas. Many of the games covered in the book were creations of Sid Sackson himself, who was a prolific game designer. Book Sections The sections of the book and the games covered therein are as follows: In Search of Big and Little Games *''Blue and Gray'', a board game by Henry Busch and Arthur Jaeger *'' Hekaton'', a card game originally publ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Essen Feather
The Essen Feather (german: Essener Feder) is an award for German-style board games, given at the Deutscher Spiele Preis ceremony at the ''Spiel'' game fair in Essen, Germany. The award is given to games with well-written rules, as it was felt that too many good games were spoiled by incomprehensible rules. The trophy is a brass goose quill and inkwell on a chessboard. Winners *1981 Focus *1982 Dark Tower *1983 Giganten *1984 Inka *1985 Wildlife Adventure *1986 Das Blaue Amulett *1987 Spy & Spy *1988 Holiday AG *1989 No game was found worthy of the award *1990 Lifestyle *1991 Hotu Matua *1992 Coco Crazy *1993 Acquire *1994 New Games in Old Rome (German: ''Neue Spiele im Alten Rom'') *1995 The Settlers of Catan *1996 Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix (German: ''Top Race'') *1997 Mississippi Queen *1998 Die Macher *1999 Union Pacific *2000 Taj Mahal *2001 Entdecker *2002 Puerto Rico *2003 Alhambra *2004 Fifth Avenue *2005 Piranha Pedro *2006 Nacht der Magier *2007 Chateau ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |