Hive

Hive (2000) is a traversal strategy game for two players. It's like chess in that the different Insect pieces move in different ways, but it's played without a board.

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You play with twenty-two Insect pieces, eleven black and eleven white. You start with one player placing a piece, subsequent pieces need to be played so they have one of their hexagon edges touching an existing piece. The aim is to surround your opponent's Queen piece. But you also need to be careful to stop your Queen from being surrounded at the same time.

With each turn, you can choose whether to add a piece or move a piece. The different Insect pieces move in different ways:

• Ant can move anywhere around the edge of the board.
• Spider can move three spaces at a time.
• Grasshopper can jump to the end of a straight line of pieces.
• Beetle moves one space but can move on top of other insects.
• Queen can move one space at a time.

This simple set of moves combines, like chess, to create all sorts of complex battles and strategies. Along with how you move your pieces you can also aim to lock in your opponent. One way to do this is to place an Insect on a protruding end of the pattern, as no move can divide the Hive this can stop your opponent from moving a particular piece.

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Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Hive 24 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 6 weeks ago.