Corners — Rules

Halma for four

Four players, a 16×16 board, and each player has 13 pieces in a stepped corner: four squares along the edge, four more above them, then three and two. Colours go clockwise from the a1 corner: white, red, black, blue. Each player aims for the opposite corner, the home of the player diagonally across. Steps and jumps go in all eight directions, you may jump over any pieces, and locking in is allowed.

Play goes clockwise, white first. It is every player for themselves: whoever first brings all their pieces into the opposite corner takes first place, and the others play on for second, third and fourth. A player who has finished no longer moves, but their pieces stay on the board. A player with no move skips the turn.

Deadlines are counted in rounds: a round ends when everyone still playing has moved. Within 80 rounds all pieces must leave their own corner. A player who misses this, or brings a piece back into their own corner after the deadline, is out: they take the worst free place, and their pieces are removed from the board so they do not block the corner of the player opposite. Resigning or losing on time ends the game: the player who resigned is last, and the others are placed by who has finished and by the number of pieces in their target.

The game limit is 250 rounds. At the limit, as with a threefold repetition, the remaining players share places by the pieces in their target. The variant is unrated. Pairs play in Halma 2 vs 2.