I discovered Trox at the Mind Sports Olympiad, where the inventor had a stand. He described the game as "Noughts and Crosses with a couple of twists", but I think he’s doing himself an injustice; he has created an unusual game with unique strategies, and a varying board layout which guarentees that the game won’t become stale.

One player plays ‘O’s, the other player plays ‘X’s, and this is where the similarity to Noughts and Crosses ends. Each player has 6 wooden counters marked with their symbol (two each of three colours; red, black, and yellow). There is also a common pile of beautiful wooden tiles, each with three triangles, again one each of red, black and yellow in various patterns. Players attempt to complete a triangle with four of their counters, eg.

by playing tiles and counters, as follows...

The game is played in two stages. In the first stage, the player (‘O’s) chooses a tile, and places a counter on one of the triangles, so that the colour of the counter matches the colour of the triangle. After that, players take turns to either:

1. add a tile to the playing area (with no restrictions on colour matching), and play a counter in a triangle on the new tile, or
2. play a counter on an unoccupied triangle on an existing tile.

If a player manages to enclose an opponent’s counter like so:

then the opponent’s counter is captured. This means that it is turned upside down, and becomes neutral - it may not be moved for the rest of the game, and it can count as either player’s piece at the corner, but not the centre, of a triangle. For example, using ‘C’ to denote a captured piece,

The first position above is a win for ‘O’, the second isn’t.

Assuming no-one wins in the first stage, the second stage begins when both players have placed all of their pieces. Here, tiles and counters can no longer be added to the playing area. Instead, players must move one of their counters to a different unoccupied triangle of the same colour. Capturing and winning conditions remain the same.

With the rules as stated, the first player has a large advantage, so the second player is given the opportunity to swap sides at the end of his/her second turn. (If the second player takes this option, then (s)he may not add a new tile to the board on his/her second turn, which prevents the second player from deliberately sabotaging their position.) This rule means that the first player has an interesting balancing act - if the position is too strong, then the second player will swap sides and gain the advantage, if the position is too weak, then the second player will choose not to swap, and will still have an advantage.

All in all, an interesting game, and one that should have a wider appeal than the rather limited abstract games market because of the attractive pieces and short playing time (5-10 minutes).

Stephen Tavener's review first appeared in Games Games Games Magazine, Issue 118, February 1998, this revised version, although available at the time, never made it to print. boo hoo....

Trox is currently available only from the inventor, Peter Andrew, Trox Games, Blogishay Lane, Ashburton, Devon TQ13 7DE, and will cost £12 + £1 postage.

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