Emergo (board game)

Emergo is an abstract strategy game for two players, Black and White, created by Christian Freeling and Ed van Zon in 1986. It belongs to the stacking family of column checkers, alongside Bashni and Lasca. Its distinctive rule is that a captured man is not removed from the board but placed under the capturing piece as a prisoner, so each piece is a column whose top man, the cap, decides who owns it, and a prisoner can later be freed when its captor's cap is taken. Play has an entering phase, in which each player places twelve men on vacant dark squares, followed by a movement phase of diagonal steps, and capturing the largest number of pieces is compulsory. The game ends when a player cannot move or has lost every piece. The name comes from the motto of the Dutch province of Zeeland, Luctor et emergo, meaning I wrestle and emerge. The design grew from conversations about the column game Stapeldammen, and the makers settled on a 9 by 9 board.