Spargo / Margo Rules

  • designed by Cameron Browne
  • 2 players

Spargo is a 3D extension of Go, in which pinned pieces remain active in the game following capture. Spargo uses a 4x4 board, and Margo uses 6x6.

Start

The board starts empty.

Play

Players take turns adding a ball of their colour to a playable point. The ball must have freedom (i.e., it must be visibly connected to at least one empty board hole by a chain of visibly touching friendly balls) following the move.

Enemy groups with no freedom are captured after each move, except that balls supporting one or more enemy pieces are not removed. Such balls survive capture and remain active in the game as zombies.

Passing is not allowed.

Overpasses cut underpasses.

The superko rule applies: it is not allowed to repeat the board position of any previous turn with the same player to move.

End

The game ends when the current player has no legal moves, and is won by the player with the most balls in play (counting zombies).