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Mephisto

An initial positionMephisto is a game for any number of players.

You need:
A domino set, five different colored pawns, five correspondingly colored dice, a one minute sandtimer and as many beer infested beta-nerds as the room will accommodate.

This is how we played it:

  • The dominos are laid out in a 7x8 grid, no blanks on the edge, no blanks orthogonally adjacent (except the double-blank of course).
  • Players set their stakes (jawbreakers for instance, or beer) The pawns are placed on five blanks. The dice are thrown, the timer is set.
  • Each pawn must move orthogonally, exactly the number of steps that is on the corresponding die. The track may not lead onto any square twice (including the starting square). A pawn may not move onto or over an occupied square.

Object
  • Players now all try to visualize how to move the pawns so that the highest possible score is reached. There are two kinds of score: a nominal score and a street.

    Nominal
    If the pawns in the endposition are on different values, the score is the total of these values, for instance 6+6+6+5+4=27.

    Street
    If the pawns in the endposition are all on the same value, the position is a street. The highest possible nominal score 6+6+6+6+6=30 is also the lowest possible street. The lower the value, the higher the street.
    The highest street of 5 blanks is called Mephisto, but remember all pawns must end on a different blank than the one they started from!
  • If a player sees a first score or a score that tops the previous bid, he calls out: 28! ... street6! ... street4! ... .
    When the timer stops it is turned and the player with the highest bid must realize it within a minute, moving the pawns according to the rules. If he succeeds he wins all stakes, if he fails he must pay every player his stakes.
  • If a player calls out Mephisto!, the timer is turned immediately and the player must realize it in the same time it took him to visualize it.


History
You won't find Mephisto in How I invented games and why not because I couldn't either. I actually forgot how it came to be, but I remember we played it in the early days at Fanaat, late seventies early eighties.


External links

Mephisto © MindSports