Nathan Morse
United States
Powell
Ohio
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Symbol is a rather nice, challenging, lateral thinking game of perfect strategy. It is an abstract war game, played on a 7×7 board, which is grouped into nine areas, which divide a body of water and the two shores each into thirds. As with Plateau and Gounki, pieces can be merged and split for combined effect. Each of these games takes its own spin on the cleaving* of pieces, though: Plateau allows bluffing and sneak attacks on an even smaller (4×4) board, but as with Symbol, the stack moves like one of the pieces therein. Unlike Symbol, with most piece types, you can move as far as the stack is tall. Also, you can scoop up or drop off pieces as you go. In Gounki, the combined units allow you to use all the movement points of the components in whatever order you wish.
Plateau➜ Gounki➜ Symbol➜
In a fashion vaguely similar to Plateau, Symbol allows you to bring new pieces into play. In Symbol, this is done by activating the leader's special ability. This is where Symbol starts to establish its uniqueness: Symbol has a leader, in the traditional lose-him-and-you-lose sense. This is an unusual concept in a cleaving* game, although it's a well established type for abstract war games, such as the chess family and the tafl family of games. Additionally, each unit type has a special ability that that is optionally additive in a stack. Each type has unique movement (or lack thereof) — you choose one unit to "carry" the others in the stack (opposite of Plateau, which uses the top side of the top piece of the stack). Each unit also has a restriction, which is sort of subtractive in a stack — i.e. "blue can't be on land" becomes irrelevant if something land-friendly is carrying it.
Because of the way Symbol's piece powers combine [in the full game], you effectively have 63 types of unit at your disposal, to be constructed or split on the fly, as you choose, during the game. This means there is much to explore. As another distinction from Plateau, your leader deploys units within its nine-space "personal space" — i.e. its space, or one of the surrounding eight. ...unless it's a "bomb" — a destruction piece — in which case, it can be deployed in the "personal space" of any of your units.
Something that is rare in abstract strategy games: Pieces that can't move. Occasionally, you will see that in something like Navia Dratp, but invariably, it's because the piece has some other potent ability that affects its environment. Symbol isn't an exception in that respect, because both the leader and destruction pieces — two potent pieces — are immobile; however, Symbol brings something unusual to the table, because by joining mobile pieces with them, they can move at full speed. Fortunately, uniting pieces is as easy as moving your pieces onto your pieces. Splitting them is nearly as simple: Move part of a stack, leaving the rest behind. You must be careful on the split, though, lest you (for example) leave a green earth piece all by itself in water, where it’s not allowed to be all alone. Thus, it dies.
To understand how these 63 theoretical combinations of units work, you must understand the simple rules for each type:
Overarching rules:
Leader (yellow): You lose the game if he dies.
Any unit pushed off the board dies.
Any unit attacked by an enemy unit moving onto it dies.
Any unit pushed into an enemy unit dies.
Movement range:
Leader (yellow): —
Earth (green): 2, can change direction (It can move 0-1, then use one last movement "bombard" an adjacent water space without moving.)
Water (blue): 3, straight, orthogonally or diagonally (It can move 0-2, then use one last movement "bombard" an adjacent land space in the same direction without moving.)
Air (white): 2, straight, orthogonally or diagonally
Fire (red): 1
Destruction (black): —
Restriction:
Leader (yellow): —
Earth (green): Must remain on land (unless another part of its stack enables it to go elsewhere).
Water (blue): Must remain on water (unless another part of its stack enables it to go elsewhere).
Air (white): —
Fire (red): —
Destruction (black): —
Power:
Leader (yellow): Can bring 1 piece into play, on his space or orthogonally or diagonally adjacent to himself. 2 pieces if you control 3 areas (only your units are in it); 3 pieces if you control 6 areas.
Earth (green): —
Water (blue): —
Air (white): —
Fire (red): Can blast all adjacent enemy units one space farther away (in a straight line from it)
Destruction (black): Can detonate, destroying all units in its space, and the eight adjacent spaces.
Conceptually, the easiest way to keep track of what a conjoined piece can do in Symbol is to imagine that one unit is carrying the others, and to bear in mind that it can be a different carrier each turn, because there is no fixed order to the stacks. You may rearrange them at will, in case it helps you and your opponent see what’s going on. In the meantime, the carrier and everything on it may use their special abilities at the appropriate times. Some, like destruction and fire, happen specifically after the movement, so there are some reasonable constraints to resultant effects of whatever mad combination you cook up mid-play.
I've only given an early impression of the game here, but let me close anyway, by saying that Symbol is another brilliant cleaving* game, with plenty to justify shelf space for it, and plenty of strategy to explore with the 63 types of units you can make, even without considering the fact that each player's unit supply can vary from game to game, and needn't match! Oh, and how could I fail to mention that nestorgames has made this as squishily portable as the rest of this line of games, with extremely nice, laser-cut, etched acrylic pieces?
* Ambiguity intentional: See cleave and cleave.
2011-10-21 Edit: Clarified blue/green bombardment ability
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Russ Williams
Poland
Wrocław
Dolny Śląsk
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This game's been on my radar a long time... I need to actually try it sometime!
I wish the review gave a little more concrete info about Symbol itself (instead of background info on other games). E.g. you mention "cleaving games" and merging and splitting, but is there actually merging and splitting in Symbol? (It's been a long time since I read the rules.) If so, how does it work? From the review it sounds like you create pieces already stacked and then they move around but don't split...? Does the order of pieces in a stack have any significance (apparently not)?
zefquaavius wrote: Something that is rare in abstract strategy games: Pieces that can't move. Occasionally, you will see that in something like Navia Dratp, but invariably, it's because the piece has some other potent ability that affects its environment.
Or it's a player's town in Cannon.
PS: your Chess Games and Tafl links are not formatted quite right, so they don't work.
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Nathan Morse
United States
Powell
Ohio
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Jeez, I shouldn't write reviews late at night.
 Let me flesh that out a little more, Russ. Here are the answers to your questions, though:
russ wrote: I wish the review gave a little more concrete info about Symbol itself (instead of background info on other games). I, too. I'll have to fix that.
russ wrote: E.g. you mention "cleaving games" and merging and splitting, but is there actually merging and splitting in Symbol? (It's been a long time since I read the rules.) Yes!
russ wrote: If so, how does it work? You simply move onto a stack of your pieces to merge. To split, you move part of a stack, leaving the rest behind.
russ wrote: From the review it sounds like you create pieces already stacked and then they move around but don't split...? No, quite the opposite. The only way you can bring a multi-piece stack into play is if you control 3+ (or 6+) regions. Then your king's power can bring 2 (or 3) pieces into play at once. You can choose to bring them into the same place.
russ wrote: Does the order of pieces in a stack have any significance (apparently not)? No, and I meant to state that. I guess I forgot in my sleepy state.
russ wrote: zefquaavius wrote: Something that is rare in abstract strategy games: Pieces that can't move. Occasionally, you will see that in something like Navia Dratp, but invariably, it's because the piece has some other potent ability that affects its environment. Or it's a player's town in Cannon.
Sorry for the spotty review. I shall fix it.
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Ben Stanley
United States
Pleasant Grove
Utah
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Thank you for the insightful review, Nathan! Many players and early fans have found some similarities between Symbol and a number of ancient and modern games (like Shogi, Navia Draapt, Plateau, and many others), many that I must embarassingly admit I was not familiar with when I designed the game. I have been pleased that people seem to enjoy the depth and options it has to offer, find a number of truly unique aspects to the gameplay, and like the quick games with intense strategy and yet a tactical element that keeps games very fast-paced, because many mistakes (which can be easy to make) prove very lethal.
zefquaavius wrote: . . . let me close anyway, by saying that Symbol is another brilliant cleaving* game, with plenty to justify shelf space for it, and plenty of strategy to explore with the 63 types of units you can make, even without considering the fact that each player's unit supply can vary from game to game, and needn't match!
I love the customizable aspect of Symbol and find that to be one of its greatest virtues and important innovations (along with the water/land territory dichotomy, the explosions, the fire unit rules, and the reinforcement mechanics). I appreciate you pointing out that the players' supplies can vary and need not match. Somewhere in the forum here there is a fantastic example of a play by forum game using those advanced rules, where I played a strategy we called the "Imperial Japanese Air Force" and my opponent played extremely well with a strategy we dubbed the "British Royal Navy." I highly recommend a read through that play by forum game for those who want to understand the game better and see a glimpse of its possibilities.
Thanks again for the review.
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Symbol➜
Posted Thu May 5, 2011 4:18 am
