Mind Ninja is a simple abstract strategy game for 2 players.
It is unusual among board games in that the players themselves invent the win condition when the game starts, in a way that ensures both that equally-skilled players have equal chances to win, and that ties are impossible. This feature leads to great variety and depth of play.
The game is also a generalization of the the game of Hex, which means that the set of all possible ways that a game of Hex can play out is a subset of the set of all the possible ways a game of Mind Ninja can play out. Mind Ninja is a generalization of many other games as well, including Go-moku (5-in-a-row), Havannah, One-Capture Go, Y, Poly-Y, and *Star, among others.
It can be played with stones of two (or more) colors on any tiled surface. It can also be played with paper and colored markers. Printable boards for this purpose (along with complete rules) are available at the official website. The best way to play, though, is probably with Bingo stampers. Instructions for doing so are here.
A winner of the 2007 Concours International de Créateurs de Jeux de Société. In the prize announcement the administrators of the contest said that Mind Ninja is "...surely one of the most original games we've recieved for the contest in many years." (translated from French)
Home Page: http://www.mindninja.com
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