Kerak

Imagine a strategy game that’s perfectly fair, no dice, no luck……that’s always unique,
has no stale strategies, no memorized moves……that’s fast-paced, creative, fun…

Imagine Kerak.

We crave competition, we chase chance —we love to lose ourselves in our limits.  This is why we play strategy games, they connect us to our family and friends, they’re exhilarating, and they keep us sharp.

But they have their problems too.  None of us likes to lose because the dice were unkind, and we don’t want to memorize a dozen opening moves to play a casual game with a friend.  Most importantly, we’re creative, and we don’t like playing the same game over and over again.  It’s just boring.  That’s why we created Kerak.

Kerak is strategy reborn.

Kerak is the strategy game for our generation, our world.  We love to play, and we play fair; that’s why Kerak has no dice, no hidden information, no randomness; it’s just strategy, pure and simple.  When we win, we win: when we lose, we learn, we laugh, and we play again.

We are creative beings, whether we’re making music or movies, or just playing our favourite game.  Kerak lets us express ourselves: we set up our pieces where we like and we create our own strategy.  We don’t need to memorize opening moves to play Kerak, every game is different, every game is what we make of it.  We play like we live, on our own terms.

Kerak is strategy redefined...reengineered.

So how did we design a strategy game that’s both perfectly fair and gives us creative freedom? With Kerak we made sure you get to set up your pieces how you like. That way every game is unique.

Setting up our own pieces creates a space for individual creativity and helps make Kerak extra fair.  In most games (think chess), whoever goes first has a better chance of winning, but in Kerak we take turns both placing our pieces, and then moving them.  Whoever moves first (good) has to place their piece first too (not so good)... now that’s fair.

This also means that Kerak has basically unlimited strategic depth: we love numbers:  there are 371,993,326,789,901,217,467,999,448,150,835,200,000,000 ways to start a game of Kerak, that’s more stars than there are in the universe.

We also designed our pieces to have different strengths and weaknesses, which means we have endless ways to use them to play, and to win.

We love Kerak.  We love it because it’s fair.  We love it because your strategies create the game, not the other way around.  And we love it because it’s a real, honest strategy game: you strategically place your pieces, you strategically maneuver individual pieces, and you strategically mobilize groups of pieces.
 

Let's play Kerak

the basics	Begin by unfolding the brilliant metallic board.  Next, remove the two sets of eighteen vintage-silkscreened, wooden pieces from the two beautifully embroidered faux velvet pouches.  Now we’re ready. Kerak is easy to understand: we just set up our pieces in the three rows closest to us and use them to protect our castle, while also trying to capture our friend’s castle.  That’s it. Awesomely simple and simply awesome.
meet the pieces	Archer   Castle   Calvary   Hero     Infantry Knight
building our army	First, we take turns placing our pieces, one at a time, in the three rows closest to us.  Red starts.  We can place them in any order, on any of these spaces we like.  Should we put our castle in the corner or right in the middle?  It's our choice.
in battle	Red moves first.  We can move any piece we like, provided it has room to move (pieces can’t move through one another, and they can’t occupy the same tile, they’re not ghosts).  We can even move them onto spaces occupied by our opponent's pieces, this is how we capture them,  which helps us win the game. The only catch is that our piece has to be strong enough to capture our opponent's piece.  How does that work?
not everyone’s good at everything	Some pieces are stronger than others, some are faster. The way it works is easy: if we want to capture another piece, we first check to see if we can move there.  We can, great! Second, we check to see if our piece’s strength value, plus that of his pals (the pieces that touch the tile we’re trying to occupy), is greater than that of our friend’s piece, plus that of his pals (his pieces touching our piece).  If our number is greater or equal to his, we can move there and capture his piece. Now his piece is out of play for the rest of the game.
let’s play again	So our friend just captured our castle, now what?  For starters, let’s play again, we still have 371, 993, 326, 789, 901, 217, 467, 999, 448, 150, 835, 199, 999, 999 new openings to try out! Every game is different, Kerak will never get boring. Let's play Kerak! Why not try it for yourself by downloading a free pdf sample version of Kerak? (some assembly required - think arts and crafts)   Or, you can pre-order your very own, limited edition copy of Kerak online!