Ignis

About this board game

Ignis is a two-player abstract strategy game from 2013, designed for a 20-minute battle between fire and water on a 6×6 board.

Each player begins with eight tiles in a fixed arrangement: one side commands fire, while the other commands water. Twelve air tiles and nine earth tiles begin off the board, and every non-earth tile has earth on its reverse side.

On a turn, a player takes a neutral tile from outside the board and slides it onto an edge space. If that space is occupied, the incoming tile pushes the tiles in front of it. When a non-earth tile is pushed off the board, it is flipped to its earth side. Earth tiles can move, but they cannot be pushed off the board.

• Slide a neutral tile onto an edge space.
• Push occupied tiles before it.
• Flip non-earth tiles that leave the board to their earth side.
• Watch the edges for opportunities to remove entire rows or columns.

If an outer edge of the playing area contains tiles of only one element, those tiles are removed. The spaces then become off-limits, shrinking the active area: after one edge is removed, the board is treated as 5×6; further removals can create areas such as 4×6 or 5×5. Removing one edge may immediately cause another to disappear.

In Ignis, every push can reshape the battlefield and change which spaces remain available. The game ends as soon as either fire or water has been eliminated from the playing area, giving victory to the opposing player.