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Often considered among the best of the GIPF Project and the only one known to have organized play, DVONN is a look at what winning does or doesn't mean.
Many modern games have three distinct phases of execution: setup, gameplay, and tear down. The last is the least important of the three, since assessment of it is usually just a measure of how much time it takes to pack a game away. But the first one is significantly more prominent because it often signals not only what type of game is at hand but how it will be played. Chess, for example, has the same setup every time, so variation is solely embodied within the constraints of the middle (and usually most important) phase: Play. Go, on the other hand, can have a variable setup that distinctly affects the game, which is based on the ranking of the players in question, wherein the lower-ranked and nominally weaker player can place stones on the board to create a starting advantage. But DVONN goes even further than that classic, in that the "setup" phase for the game is actually a distinct part of that middle phase, as it's an essential part of how the game will be played and, indeed, has a degree of strategic depth all its own. It's certainly possible that some players may be better at setting up a game of DVONN than they are at actually "playing" it, in the same way that some people are great deckbuilders for Magic: The Gathering but may not be great players and vice-versa. But the two phases are more closely linked in a game of DVONN than even that comparison usually suggests.
A game of DVONN "begins" when all 23 white pieces, all 23 black pieces, and the 3 red DVONN pieces are placed on the board. But the game actually begins as those pieces are being placed, since that placement will determine what pieces are even able to move at the beginning, which will inform all of the rest of the pieces in terms of how they can move or be moved and whether the game will continue more than a few turns. All 49 pieces are placed on the loci of the elongated hexagonal board, but the only pieces that can be moved are those that aren't surrounded by other pieces. That means that the opening move will always come from one of the 24 spots on the board's edge. Once that move is made, other paths are opened on the board that will gradually expand as more pieces are moved. Each single piece can only move one space, which must end on top of another piece, creating a stack. In turn, any stack of pieces must move a number of spaces equal to the number of pieces in the stack and always in a straight line. If the stack can't make a legal move, then it's stuck there until it can. Also, every piece on the board must be able to draw a connection free of empty spaces to one of the three red DVONN pieces. If any stack or single piece can't make that connection, it's removed from the board. Whoever's piece is on top of any stack controls the movement of that stack. It should be pretty easy to imagine from that description how quickly a game of DVONN can go from having innumerable possibilities to a set of very narrow choices quite quickly. At any point that either the white or black player can't make a choice, they have to wait for their opponent to either create an opening for them or also run out of moves. At that point, whoever has the most pieces left on the board (the highest total stack) wins the game.
At it's most basic level, DVONN asks some questions about the foundational nature of modern games. It first dispenses with the idea of those disparate phases. There is no "setup" because that first phase is part of the play of the game. It's really just a first stage in the "gameplay" part and has its own strategy and nuance. But, similarly, the moves near the end of a game are often different from those in most other abstracts, where you're closing the vise on your opponent after having outmaneuvered and/or outpositioned them, if not both. In DVONN's endgame, you're often just trying to save yourself from either hampering your final position or opening up paths for your opponent to continue. In the same way that there aren't distinct "setup" and "gameplay" phases, there often isn't a way to predict who's actually winning, since changes in position might create opportunity where there wasn't one before. That mystery extends into positioning both around the red DVONN pieces (so that your pieces aren't isolated and removed) and away from clear paths for your opponent, as any one piece can jump atop a stack no matter how many pieces are in it as long as said piece or stack makes the required number of moves. There are no pieces or stacks that are more versatile or more threatening than others. Indeed, when a stack gets too high to move easily, it often becomes less of a threat than any single piece on the board, which can easily take control of it. Having a DVONN piece in a stack is a sure way to make sure that said stack will never be out of connection with a red piece, but it also means that moving that stack might end up isolating other stacks of yours and seeing them removed.
This is where DVONN takes a sharp look at the basics of gameplay in this modern era. The best games are those that ask players to make tough choices in the course of trying to win. But what does "winning" mean? You're not trying to build the biggest stack because that's more difficult to move... but you are trying to build the biggest stack because that's the basic aspect of how you win the game. You're not trying to orient yourself around only a few spaces in connection with a red piece... but you are trying to do that because keeping your pieces in touch with the reds is, again, how you end up winning the game. But was that because you "won" the initial phase, where all of the pieces are placed? Or because you made the right moves in the second phase, while still keeping your stacks away from your opponent's so that they can't easily acquire them? Are we stopping to question what the real "game" of DVONN actually is? Or is it multiple things, sometimes simultaneously? Many modern games are closer to the classics like Chess and Go because they often demand repeated plays to really appreciate their depth. I think the GIPF Project games are largely like that, as well, but there are a couple that are a step above the rest in that respect and DVONN is one of them. That doesn't always make it better than the others (beauty, beholder, etc.), but it does make it something to be appreciated for those of us who take a broader look at games, from a design perspective, gameplay impact, and otherwise.
Next time, we move on to the game that is probably the most popular of the series and which many others consider to be the best, YINSH.
