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A few years back, my parents had this game about connecting streams, or rivers. The goal was to connect the streams which started at your side of the board to the other side, and deny the streams of your opponent (in some way, bit foggy). It most probably had a Japanese name, or Japanese sounding to us Europeans (so basically "an East Asian name").

Board
The board was like a small basin, with a large area surrounded by a tiny wall (or, better to say, the main area was slightly lower than the edges of the field), about a tile deep. On the part of the edge where players started there were tiny knobs, presumably meant as the sources of the streams. The main area in the center was shaped as a grid, so the tiles would not be able to move (too much).

Tiles
A tile is a rectangle of size 2x1 if we take the squares in the grid for measure. On each tile a stream is shown, having at least two ends "flowing" to the edges of the tile, but there were also tiles with more than two ends (where the stream could split). The tiles were coloured red, with the streams being white lines painted on them (and maybe slightly pressed in).

Gameplay
Two players play one tile per turn, alternating between the two players. The goal, as said before, is to connect your stream to the other side. Based on this, I presume one player plays horizontally and the other plays vertically on the board. Tiles can be laid down in any orientation, as long as it connects to at least one stream and does not block/abruptly end existing streams. First player to have some amount of knobs on the other side connected to, wins (I guess, may just be any amount of streams reaching the other side).

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    Are you able to provide any pictures of this game? If you can it would help in identifying it.
    – Joe W
    Aug 2, 2018 at 20:07
  • @JoeW I am sadly unable to provide pictures. I might have a try at recreating the image in my mind with Paint, but I believe the explanation to be clearer than whatever I will be able to produce. Aug 2, 2018 at 20:09

1 Answer 1

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You possibly played Ta Yü.

It's one of many games that follow the "connect two sides"-pattern, more popular ones are Hex or Quoridor, versions can even be played on a Goban (Go board)

However, there are differences to your Description:

  • Players are starting in the middle of the board and try connecting to two opposite sides
  • The "streams" are apparently never colored red: Game tiles with lines on them
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    In this picture it shows the tiles as red and streams as white, exactly as I remembered them. So that is the game! Aug 3, 2018 at 12:14
  • Ah, perfect! :)
    – npst
    Aug 3, 2018 at 12:14

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