By Galo S Mirth
Dōbutsu shōgi, often called Animal Shogi, is one of the most successful modern gateways into Japanese board game culture. It keeps core shogi ideas such as capture, drops, promotion, and king safety, but compresses them into a small board and a ruleset that children and first time players can learn quickly.
What Dōbutsu shōgi is
The standard game uses a 3×4 board and four piece types per side: lion, giraffe, elephant, and chick. Like standard shogi, captured pieces switch sides and can be dropped back onto the board. A player wins by capturing the opposing lion, or by a successful “try” where their own lion reaches the back rank and cannot be captured on the next move. (more…)