YORKTON – When J’emme arrived the rules were in French.
Fortunately, the daughter of a ‘Guilder’ has enough French to translate the rules, and off we were able to go – the rules really are super easy.
To start with J’emme is one of a rather rare group of games, an abstract strategy game which plays two-to-six.
Now most games that suggest they can play many as abstract strategy offerings falter beyond two, so we were apprehensive.
We launched into J’emme with just Trevor and I, and while it plays solidly at two it doesn’t offer a lot you can’t already experience with the classic Pente released in 1977.
The lone difference is that J’emme offers multiple win conditions, (depending on the number of players):
- First to reach a line of 6
- First to reach X lines of 5 (X depends on number of players)
- First to reach X lines of 4 (X depends on number of players)
- First to reach X captured opponent's pieces (X depends on number of players)
The win options does make J’emme play longer than Pente, which is not necessarily a good thing.
Next we tried with three, and the interest ticked up. You get into situations you can sort of force another player into a move to block the third, by ignoring a move needed to prevent a win yourself.
That can be frustrating for the forced player but adds strategy and over a game it probably evens out.
Of course you can get into a kingmaker position — more so with three — where player one can’t block two positions that will lead to a win, so their move determines the eventual winner.
At higher player numbers the board will become more chaotic and that means players need to be sharp to protect position with good formations, and to see good spots to capture.
Oh and it seems more likely the capture win option will occur more at higher numbers.
The board with J’emme looks good, and the ‘stones’ while smallish, they are moulded to be flat on one side, so they sit nicely on the board. The stones are bright too, so a game in play is aesthetically very sharp looking in an abstract Art Nouveau-sort of way.
In the end, that this will stand up to multi-player more than most abstract strategy games we’ve encountered makes this one a fairly easy recommendation.
J’emme comes from the French company Lansay which started business in the 1970s.
