Halma (from the Greek word meaning "jump") is a board game invented in 1883 or 1884 by an American thoracic surgeon at Harvard Medical School, George Howard Monks. An English game called Hoppity was the inspiration.

Playing equipment consists of a checkered board, divided into 16x16 squares. Pieces are typically black & white for two-player games, and of various colors or other distinction in games of four players.

Summary

The game is played by two or four players on opposing corners of the board. The goal of the game is to transfer all of one's pieces from one's own camp into the camp in the opposing corner. Each turn, a player either moves a single piece to an adjacent open square, or jumps over one or more pieces in sequence.

Rules of play

Set up

• The board consists of a grid of 16 by 16 squares.
• Squares are adjacent horizontally, vertically or diagonally.
• A game may be played by two or four players.
• Each player's camp consists of a cluster of adjacent squares in one corner of the board. These camps are delineated on the board.
  • For two-player games, each player's camp is a cluster of 19 squares. The camps are in opposite corners.
  • For four-player games, each player's camp is a cluster of 13 squares. Each of the four corners of the board is a camp.
• Each player has a set of pieces in a distinct colour, of the same number as squares in each camp.
• The board starts with all the squares of each player's camp occupied by a piece of that player's colour.

Objective

• The objective is to cause all one's own pieces to occupy the opposing camp: the diagonally opposite camp to one's own.

Play sequence

• Players randomly determine who will take the first turn.
• Each player's turn consists of moving a single piece of one's own colour in one of the following plays:
  • One move to an empty square:
    • Place the piece in an empty adjacent square.
    • This move ends the play.
  • One or more jumps over adjacent pieces:
    • An adjacent piece of any colour can be jumped if there is an adjacent empty square on the directly opposite side of that piece.
    • Place the piece in the empty square on the opposite side of the jumped piece.
    • The piece which was jumped over is unaffected and remains on the board.
    • After any jump, one may make further jumps, or end the play.
• Once a piece has reached the opposing camp, a play cannot result in that piece leaving that camp.
• If the current play results in having every square of the opposing camp occupied by one's own pieces, the acting player wins.
• Otherwise, after each players turn, continue with the next player to the left taking a turn.

Comparison to other games

• The mechanic of jumping pieces is reminiscent of draughts or checkers but differs in that no opposing pieces are ever captured or otherwise withdrawn from the board nor is jumping compulsory.

• Similarities between Halma and Chinese Checkers are not coincidental. Chinese Checkers was originally published in 1892 as Stern-Halma (German for "Star Halma") and later renamed upon marketing to the United States to appear more exotic. The name is misleading, since the game has no historical connection with China, nor is it a Checkers game.

Variations available

There are also 8x8 and 10x10 board variations, either of which is adequate for two players and they have 10 and 15 pieces per player, respectively. There are various on-line versions on the internet, usually for two-player, turn based play.

There is a rule variation on some sites that states that if a player still has a player in their start region after so and so many moves (typically 30 on the 8x8 game and 50 on the 10x10 game) then they automatically lose, which gives rise to occasional attempts by a fast advancing player to block his opponents piece in the start area - a move which can backfire if the other player is wise to it. This quirk of play is typical to the 10x10 online versions. In non-electronic versions the number of moves is not normally counted.

Basic tactics

Halma in comparison with many board games has a beginning game, a middle and an end. One can classify the beginning as the part before the opposing pieces are in contact, the middle is where the opposing pieces are already either blocking or jumping each other and the end game is the point from which the opponents no longer have the ability to effectively block each other, and must run for home. The beginning game is usually a set-piece battle, with players preferring their own favoured openings, the middle game is usually characterised by opportunistic play, and the player with the most patience to check the whole board for opportunities, including those gained by moving backwards in order to move forwards, will gain an advantage. The middle game should also plan for the end game, with players preferring moves that will enable them to put on a "turn of speed" in the end game, players need to seek to avoid "stragglers".

A key tactic as with most board games is early control of the centre, as this gives additional mobility to pieces. A blocking wall can be made with pieces 2 layers deep, and the advantage of this is to deflect the other player from the centre and make them move their pieces over a longer trajectory. However, if the opponent also builds a wall next to this, the first player to move his pieces from his wall will usually be at a strategic disadvantage.

It is important to understand that single pieces move hardly any faster than paired pieces in the end game, and that therefore a player with two individual stragglers is at a disadvantage to a player with a pair of piece juxtaposed to jump over each other to their final positions.

The larger boards have more strategic combinations available than the smaller boards, and the four player game offers more tactical intrigue than the two player game.

References to halma in fiction

• The game appears in Billy Wilder's 1944 classic film Double Indemnity.
• Talking halma pieces featured in a Rupert the Bear story.
• Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited has Cordella playing Halma with Nanny.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy contains a scene during which the shipboard computer offers a game of halma.
• The Good Life features a scene where they go to bed early one night and take Halma to entertain them until they fall alseep, in the first episode of Season 3 - "The Early Birds".

Abstract strategy games