| Deviant Login | Shop | Join deviantART for FREE  |
Take the Tour  |
Sun and MoonSun and Moon is an abstract strategy game for two players symbolizing the struggle between the royal pony sisters that ended with the younger princess being imprisoned in the moon. Major contributors to development and testing include (in alphabetical order) ~Blaze-Drag, *Caerdwyn, ~chowdahrogansorah, ~dann494, ~Ganondox, ~timgil, and ~TopGull. Digital re-creations of the game abound. In no particular order: ~relgukxilef posted a version on Sourceforge ~TopGull posted a version on his gallery ~Rindis8 posted a VASSAL prototype on his gallery ~Adran06 posted a version on the OCTGN forum ~PolarCookie posted a version on GitHub Anyone else who’s finished and posted a digital version, let me know and I’ll add it. I encourage others to create and post their own designs for the game board and playing pieces. My back-story for the game is that it arose among the unicorns in the capital city a century or two after the event, when living memory—aside from one notable exception, who wasn’t talking—was gone and the affair already was fading from history into legend. Moreover, the “modern” setting of the television series is supposed to be roughly equivalent to the 1860s–1880s in real history. There is all the room in the world for original, distinctive, and period-style designs, from classical through medieval to industrial-age. Comments  Dusty mentioned seeing your tweet on the subject—congratulations! I presume you’ve incorporated the latest version of the rules? Mostly they’re small tweaks—you can check both the most recent update of the rules booklet and the old journal posting where I track changes.
 I only had to change the thing with the unicorns.
Are there any ending conditions? For example: What if you only have the princess left and no shooting stars? Are you allowed to run in circles forever? Because having fun is part of life! (FIW in-joke) Nope. At the suggestion of a chess player, I added a “threefold repetition” rule fairly early on:
Threefold repetition results in a draw. If a player is forced to repeat the same pattern of moves three times in a row, the game ends in a draw. This is intended to prevent an endless game, and should not be exploited by a player in a bad position; in a tournament, doing so may be ruled a forfeit. That's not really a solution! You could make at least 216 more moves (move along every of the 6 circles 3 times). I'm not sure if that's an official chess rule but when I play with friends we say the game is a draw when one player only has the king/princess for 20 turns.
It’s phrased that way to give an opponent or tournament judge a little leeway, to prevent an argument like “But it takes three moves to complete the cycle, and the rules say the game ends if it takes two moves to complete a cycle!” The basic concept is that if it’s clear there’s no way to continue the game profitably, it ends in a draw.
 I have a few questions about Sun and Moon.
1. Wasn't there a feature in the early rules about capturing and "turning" an enemy piece? 2. When a princess moves only one star, it must capture an opposing piece. Does that mean it cannot move one star if there is no opposing piece? So excited to play this. I saw this when it got posted on EqD, bookmarked it, and when I go back home for winter break, I'm gonna make this whole set. 1. Sort of: There originally was an optional rule, based on the “drop” rule in shogi, that allowed a player to return a captured piece to the board under his control—but it eventually was eliminated as unworkable. The current shooting star piece, and its ability to promote to a soldier, is a distant descendant of this and other concepts.
2. Yes. Have fun! Let me know how it works out. |
Sta.sh
