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Icons courtesy of komodomedia.com
Now in its second revision, this variation on battleship includes both defense and vocabulary.
These rules assume that there are two players.
Print out one of the attached 2x22x7 boards for each player. You will also need a large collection of tokens, in two colors.
Each player should arrange their board in such a way that it cannot be seen by the other player. Some cardboard screens like the D&D players use would probably be needed here. As a cheaper option, a file folder stood on edge will work fine. Each player is given seven markers to represent their moles. Moles should be placed on the left-hand grid, according to the following rules:
1. One mole is placed in each column.
2. Moles should be placed such that when listed from left to right, the letters of their rows spell a seven-letter word. For example, moles may be placed in A-1, M-2, P-3, L-4, I-5, F-6, and Y-7 to spell "amplify".
Players now take turns in order. Each player may perform ONE of the following actions on their turn:
1. Call out a grid location. If their opponent does not have a mole on that square, they state this. Both players should mark this square with a marker differently colored from their moles. The attacker places their marker on their right-hand board, and the defender places the marker on their left-hand board. If there was a mole on that square, it is removed from the board, and both players mark the square.
2. The player may move ONE of their moles to an unoccupied square in its same column on their board. Squares that have been attacked previously by an opponent may not be occupied by a mole. A mole may be moved to any square in their column, provided that it forms a new word with as many letters as their are moles remaining.
NOTE on word formation: A player is not obligated when one of their moles is removed from their board to move a remaining mole to form a new word, however IF the player chooses to move a mole, it must be to a square which creates a new word (with as many letters as there are remaining moles).
When a player has no moles remaining, they are disqualified from the game. The last player remaining is the winner.
NOTE: If more than two players are playing, it would probably be necessary for each player to have several boards printed out, to allow their attacks on multiple players to be tracked separately.
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Revised to require wordplay
I've revised the rules to remove the alcohol, and add spelling instead.
Moles that have been hit shouldn't count in your word, though!
If you have seven moles in play, and move one to make a new word, you haven't really mounted much of a defense. But, if a mole is hit, , you would have a choice - stick with the word you were using, OR move a mole to create a new word with fewer letters (the dead mole is disregarded) - there would be no limit on how far a mole can move (The have tunnels, after all), but you should only be able to move one per turn.
possibly the rules should explicitly eliminate schnapps
I think that the grid should be bigger (20x20? without x, j, q, etc.), and there should be a requirement to spell a common 7-letter word or something like that and the only consumption should be around the actual hits. Any movement would require that the resulting letters still formed a word.
Thoughts from first play-test
There are a couple of issues here:
1. While the small glasses limit overall consumption, the constancy of drinks takes its toll, taste-wise. There should be a way to slow things down.
2. The single-square "moles" mean that every shot is a complete shot in the dark. It's all completely random. Maybe there need to be rules for placement of moles (so if you hit one, you learn something about the overall pattern). Or perhaps a requirement that if a shot hits a square next to a mole, it MUST be moved?
3. Recording my misses against my opponent on the same squares as their shots against me gets very confusing. There's space left over on a letter size sheet of paper, maybe there should be smaller grids for recording my shots at my opponents.