Inspired by the book of Genesis, the rules to Mur have been in the works for over twenty-seven years. Chess master Rudolf Spielmann once said, ‘Play the opening like a book, the middle game like a magician, and the endgame like a machine.’ Mur was designed to take the ‘machine’ out of play; game pieces are removed, not by the opponent, but by the owner who later is allowed to re-enter them into play again thereby sustaining the ‘magician-like’ part of the game indefinitely. This, of course, is the opposite of Shogi in which pieces are captured and used by the opposing player. The design in Mur, however, sustains the game from entering an ‘endgame phase’ as is the case in Chess and Go—a phase which enters a ‘solved-game position’ therefore rendering these classic games vulnerable to AI. Since it has an unsolvable state of play which is suspended from any endgame, Mur is the first purely unsolvable abstract strategy game every invented.
In addition to the design being reminiscent of Plato’s description of Atlantis, the game also employs the four-way variant of the sandwich-the-opponent rule used in the ancient Greek game of Polis—a game played during Plato’s day and which rule is still found in games of Hnefatafl today. Mur game pieces are placed and moved upon a playing area very similar to the most popular ancient Roman game, Nine Men’s Morris; the playing grid is, moreover, surrounded by a backgammon-reminiscent outer racetrack reserved for adjustable dice-tokens—they are never rolled during play making the game a perfect information game. Finally, the kraken-hunting theme with its classic tall ship playing checkers pay perfect homage to the game’s place of birth: Atlantic Canada. Mur is a solid addition to the classic lineup which includes Chess, Checkers, Backgammon and Go! We welcome you to add a Mur set today as a perfect investment to the old, treasured family game chest!