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Visuals of a puzzle game, but actually a genuinely competitive entry in three whole dimensions.
First, let's get this right out of the way: Yes, PÜNCT reminds a lot of people, including me, of crossword puzzles. The overlapping lanes of black and white just trigger that kind of thought process, where you're trying to make the white lanes fill with trivia or interpretations, bounded by the black lanes which were often decided upon by page editors who don't understand that that answer should be six letters-! Of course, the other way to look at it is just as an example of it being its own thing. For many years, few other games were like it until we began to see productions like Isle of Cats, but even that isn't a great comparison because in that game you're trying to fit your pieces into a puzzle (like those words in the crossword), whereas in PÜNCT you're basically making a puzzle of your own. That one has nothing to do with an editor or rules of constraint and can get as complicated as you and your opponent like.
The board is another hexagon and both players have 18 pieces: 6 straight, 6 angular, and 6 triangular. The object is to create a path of your color from one side of the hexagon to the opposite side. On your turn, you either place a piece from your supply on the board (has to cover three holes/spaces) or move a piece that's already on the board. When you place a piece, it always goes on the first level of the board (touching the cardboard) and can't be placed in the central hexagon (the darker spaces.) When you move a piece, you can move it anywhere, including on top of your or the opponent's pieces, as long as it remains level (i.e. is fully supported by either pieces or board.) When you move, the piece is moved in a straight line along the board, based on the slightly off-color dot of the piece (its PÜNCT.) When you finish your move, you can rotate the piece on the axis that is its PÜNCT. In other words, you can't move that off-color dot. You have to rotate around it, if you choose to do so. Also, the PÜNCT can never land on an opponent's piece, but the other dots can, which is how you'll block their paths and they'll block yours in your mutual quest for the other side of the world. Any piece that is covered by either color can't be moved until it's fully uncovered. The first person to create an unbroken path to the other side is the winner (and, wow, is that a loaded philosophical premise...)
The thing that always struck me first about this game is, of course, its three-dimensionality. You're not just moving pieces in each others' way to block progress. You're actually building your paths on top of the opponent and they, in turn, are doing the same to you. This brings forth the idea of a competitive crossword puzzle aka Scrabble; long regarded as one of the best "classic" games to emerge from the American 20th century. You're actively using your opponent's pieces to assist you in winning the game, much like GIPF or ZÈRTZ. But you're also doing so in a much less confrontational manner that doesn't involve moving or removing their pieces, but rather trying to find a way to create a larger picture. This is the first hill to climb for a lot of new players, accustomed as they are to games where every piece has its personal space and no one can interfere with that space unless it's to capture or otherwise remove what's sitting there. Here everything is potentially conjoined. It's an adjustment as a step away from even what the rest of the Project games are like.
That's been a deterrent to a number of people that I've introduced the game to. There's seemingly no confrontation in this two-player. The degree of player interaction om board games is a hot topic in this modern era, with big hits like Wingspan seemingly deemphasizing it, but other people enjoying that type of play because it means that no one can interfere with the beautiful picture they're creating and whoever makes the prettiest picture wins the game. But the same remains true here and I would argue that it isn't less confrontational than either other games or any of the rest of the Project. It's just more subtle. In the same way that enabling your opponent's moves happens in GIPF, ZÈRTZ, and DVONN, that enabling is even more direct in PÜNCT. Yes, you've potentially blocked one path they could take, but you may have provided the landing space for another one they can take right alongside it. This is especially true when pieces are moved into the central hexagon, since that usually means a shorter distance between two points (aka straight line) even though said paths don't have to be straight to win the game.
If you're willing to engage that train of thought, that can make the game symbolic of any number of societal relations. There is no one path to anything. Almost never will that path be made of just one thought process, aspect, or color. It will always be a combination of things and said things can be as stark or subtle as any measure of society. I'm not trying to get too high-handed here, as we are still talking about "just" an abstract. There is no inherent message to the game. But i've found it to be an interesting exercise in figuring out how to use all of the tools available and be ready for approaches from oblique angles that you might not have seen earlier. That's why it's probably my second- or third-favorite of the series and sometimes first. Like all of them, PÜNCT engenders deeper thought over seemingly simple situations and a lot of that thought will be in trying to encourage oneself to see things in another way.
Next up is probably the most undersung of the series in TZAAR.
