IceSickle: the Martian Peg Game

A single stash game for two players.
from Dan Isaac
(Variants are available below for group and for solo games)

IceSickle (1 IceHouse stash & 5x5 board): Alternate turns placing pieces onto empty squares. Then take turns jumping a piece, diagonally or orthogonally, over at least one other piece into an empty square. Each piece can jump over its pip-count in squares. Remove the jumped pieces, and score their pips. Continue until no jumps remain. Play again with a different starting player.

1 stash of Icehouse pieces	http://wunderland.com/icehouse/
1 Volcano board   [5x5 grid board w/ 1" squares]	http://wunderland.com/icehouse/VolcanoBoard.html

Determine who will start the first rounds Placement phase.

The second player will go first in the Jumping phase.

Phase I -- Placement

• Take turns placing one pyramid from the stash onto an empty space on the board.
• After all pieces have been placed onto the board, move onto the Jumping phase

Phase 2 -- Jumping

• Take turns making a valid jump[*], which captures at least one piece.
• If a player is unable to do this on their turn, the game ends.

Score this round, then play a second time with the other player Placing first.

• Each player totals up the Pip-Counts[**] of the pieces that they have captured, and notes those scores.
  • Alternately, you could just track the difference in the scores.
• Then remove all remaining pieces from the board, and play a second game with the other player placing the first piece.
• Total the scores from the two games and the player with the highest total wins.

[*] Definition of a jump:

A jump is made by following these steps:

1. Select a piece on the board.
   
2. Move it in a straight line (orthogonal or diagonal)
   over (at most) as many spaces as it’s Pip-Count[**],
   and land in the following space -- which must be empty.
   

   smalls can jump over only one space (and land in the second)

   mediums can jump over one or two spaces

   and larges can jump over one, two or three spaces

3. Remove all pieces that were jumped over ("captured") during the move,
   and place them in front of the player that made the move.

[**] Definition of Pip-Count:

Pip-Count is the value of a piece based on it's size:

• Large pieces count as 3 points each.
  
• Medium pieces count as 2 points each.
  
• Small pieces count as 1 point each.