Bagh-Chal
Bagh-Chal is the national game of Nepal, hundreds of years old, and one of
the most beautiful asymmetric duels in the world of board games. On a 5×5
board, four tigers face twenty goats — and the two sides have completely
different rules, different strengths, and different plans for the game.
The tigers start in the corners. They move along the board lines and,
crucially, jump over an adjacent goat to the empty intersection behind it,
eating it like in draughts. Five goats eaten — and the tigers win. The
goats, in turn, capture no one: they are placed on the board one per move
(twenty placements in all), and afterwards merely step along the lines.
Their only victory is total confinement: no tiger may have a step or a
jump left.
The beauty of the game is in its phases. First the goats «build»: every
placement either feeds a tiger or cuts off its freedom. Then the endgame
comes: the goats, like a slow net, tighten the ring. A tiger that has just
eaten a goat often falls deeper into the trap — the capture weakens the
goats' net in exactly one spot, but the tiger is already inside.
In our version you play the goats against an AI that maximizes its tigers'
freedom and punishes careless placements. The board is drawn on canvas in
a wooden palette with the canonical diagonals. Input is tuned for phones:
tap an intersection, the chosen goat's moves are highlighted. A goats' win
brings 100 points. The «Demo» mode shows an AI-vs-AI game — the best way
to see how the goats' net closes.