Surakarta - Professor Finkel's Rules
(Mostly)

(Rules as taken from https://a4games.company)

Surakarta, also know as Roundabouts, is an interesting abstract strategy game from Indonesia. The board has an unusual layout and gives rise to the game's unique method of capture which can only be achieved by a piece that first travels around one or more of the corner loops!

The game of Surakarta is played on a special board of 6 x 6 points connected orthogonally to form a grid. Additionally, eight further loops extend out from the board.
The points second in at each corner are connected by a three-quarter circle and the points third in from each corner are connected by a larger three-quarter circle concentrically outside the first. 

With each player sitting opposite each other, each player will have their 12 pieces on the first two horizontal rows nearest them. A coin should be tossed to decide who plays first. It this game we use two dice in stead of a coin.

The objective of the game is to take all of the opponent's pieces or render a player unmovable.

Players take turns to move one of their pieces. A piece moves orthogonally or diagonally one space within the main grid except when capturing. Jumping over another piece or landing on an occupied point is not allowed for a non-capturing move.

Capturing is done by moving along a line over any number of unoccupied points including a loop until an opponents piece is reached whereupon the opponents piece is captured and the attacking piece takes its place.

At least one loop MUST be travelled around in order to capture.

The game is won by the player who first manages to take all his opponent's pieces or trap the opponents pieces so they can no longer move.


About moving pieces

Just drag a piece from its position and drop it at the destination. On dragging a piece over an eligible position, a marker will appear, indicating a viable target.

There is also a list available of possible moves, given the players positions on the board .

A Button 'Show Move Options' will light up when the player has a choice of moves. The game issues values to all possibles moves. These values are presented in column 'Profit' of the Possible Moves Window.

The moves are sorted top down with the move with the highest profit on the top of the list.

Option: Show possible destinations on select (hint)

Although possible steps into a neighbouring vacant space are not difficult to miss, a viable capture of an opponents piece is somewhat diffilcult to perceive. If this option is ticked, all viable destinations are

highlighted with a semi-transparent circle. This may be considered too easy so you can uncheck the option if you so desire.