Note: The images on this homepage and subsequent pages are copyrighted: copyright 1996 P.S. Neeley, all rights reserved.
The words GoMoku Narabe, which are pronounced GO-MO-KU-NA-RA-BAY, mean:
5 (GO)
stones or pieces (Moku)
in a row (Narabe).
GoMoku Narabe is an ancient Japanese game played, traditionally, on a GO board with GO pieces -- small, smoothly convex black and white stones. The goal in GoMoku Narabe is to get 5 stones of the same color in a row -- which is not easy to reach since your opponent is continually blocking you as he or she tries to do the same.The game is often described (unfortunately) as Japanese tic-tac-toe. Nothing could be further from the truth
The game is non-trivial and has no known "do this and you’ll always win or draw" strategy as in tic-tac-toe. It has the advantages of being fast (you can play a lot of games in a half an hour), being easy to understand, and requiring practice to play really well.
No one would say that GoMoku Narabe is a complicated as Chess, Shogi (Japanese Chess), or Go, but it offers ample opportunity for players to exhibit and develop strategy and skill. It has a rich historical and cultural heritage, furnishes an accessible 'jumping-off' point into an interesting area of mathematics, and is playable by even children of age 4 or 5. Besides, its darn fun!
GoMoku Narabe was introduced into Europe in the 1880's where it became very popular. It is still known there as 'Spoil Five', 'Go-bang', or 'Pegity'. There is a competition form of GoMoku, known as RenJu, which is considered by many experts to one of the world's greatest strategy games.
Download it right from here (GoMoku.zip -- 204 Kb)
Interested in just the rules and history of the game? Then download just the Windows Help file if you'd like.
Note: This program requires VBRUN300.DLL to exist on your system.
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