Hyle

About this board game

Hyle is a two-player abstract game for a 45-minute session, first released in 1979. Played on a 5×5 board, it challenges one player to introduce colored disks while the other rearranges the grid to create scoring palindromes.

Each round assigns one player the role of Chaos. Chaos randomly draws colored wooden disks and places them on a vinyl or cloth map. After each disk is placed, the other player, Order, may move any disk horizontally or vertically on the grid in an effort to form sequences of colors that read identically from either direction.

A palindrome can be as simple as two matching colors, such as blue/blue, or a longer sequence such as red/blue/yellow/blue/red. Order scores points based on the lengths of the palindromes formed, making each placement an opportunity to look for matching patterns across the board.

• Players: 2
• Playing time: 45 minutes
• Board: 5×5 spaces
• Roles: Chaos and Order, with each player taking both roles
• Scoring: Points equal to the lengths of formed palindromes

Scoring can include multiple palindromes within one sequence. For example, blue/blue/blue is worth 7 points because it contains two 2-point palindromes and one 3-point palindrome. The game lasts two rounds, allowing each player to act once as Chaos and once as Order.

Hyle also has a larger variant: Hyle 7 uses the same game on a 7×7 grid instead of a 5×5 grid.