TAMSK(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-09)
TAMSK is a fairly simple two player abstract at heart; it's played on a hexagonal grid, each player has three pieces, and takes turns moving a piece to an adjacent space.
Another point in TAMSK's favour is the design - the board is cunningly designed so that each space will hold the right number of rings and no more, and so the the timers will be stable, and not in danger of being knocked over.
TAMSK is part of the GIPF project, which means that as well as being a fantastic game in its own right, it can be played in conjunction with GIPF, but that's another story.
I became hooked on Gipf, and indeed, revisited Tamsk, Zertz, and Dvonn.
Gipf resembles the origins of continents, Tamsk is a desert, Zertz a polar ocean, Dvonn a volcanic landscape, and Yinsh a weather front crossing an open ocean.
Tamsk is much more familiar territorial game in which the element of chaos is introduced via time management (the hourglass is running over!).
TAMSK is the second game in Kris Burm's wholly remarkable Project GIPF series.
The actual board game is played with egg-timers as playing pieces, and succeeds in using time as a strategic element of the game.
Each player has 3 timers, labelled ABC and XYZ for no particularly good reason, and 32 discs.
www.gamerz.net /pbmserv/tamsk.html (406 words)
Funagain Games: TAMSK(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-09)
General concensus seems to be that TAMSK is the least of the first 4 GIPF games, and though I'd agree with that in respect of strategic depth it doesn't tell the whole story.
There's nothing else quite like it that I've seen, and playing a different game with Chess clocks doesn't apply time pressure in quite the same way as TAMSK, because the hourglasses will give a variable amount of time depending where the sand had got to were when they moved (and thus turned over).
The tiles are used to assemble the board; the marbles are in a pool.
Tamsk(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-09)
In Tamsk each player starts the game with 3 hourglasses and 32 rings.
The object of the game is to get rid of as many rings as possible.
Tamsk introduces time as a substantial strategic element—each hourglass that runs out of time is lost!
www.abstractstrategy.com /tamsk.html (109 words)
Special: Project GIPF(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-09)
TAMSK is the only strategy game which uses time as a tactical element; your pieces are egg-timers, which die if they run out of sand.
Pieces are not owned by either player, so it is vitally important to stay a move ahead of your opponent, or you may find yourself caught in your own trap.
Some potentials were included in TAMSK and ZERTZ, to give players a feel for the combined game, but for maximum chaos, buy the potential sets.
The GIPF Project Expansion Set #1 contains 12 Tamsk-potentials; 6 potentials per color is the standard number to play with.
The kit is meant to give players who like playing with the potentials the possibility to get more potentials without needing to buy a second game of Tamsk.
That aside, it is also meant to serve those who want to find out what potentials are all about without needing to purchase Tamsk.
Players then remove their row and capture any of their opponent's pieces which extend that row.
It is named after the game TAMSK and offers new ways to play GIPF.
Just to be clear, you can use the TAMSK potentials included in the basic TAMSK game to link TAMSK to GIPF; but the three included in TAMSK are really not enough to make the combined game all that interesting.
