The Game of the Generals, also called GG or GOG or simply The Generals, is an educational war game invented in the Philippines by Sofronio H. Pasola Jr. in 1970. Its Filipino name is "Salpakan." It can be played within twenty to thirty minutes. It is designed for two players, each controlling an army, and a neutral arbiter (sometimes called a referee or an adjutant) to decide the results of "challenges" between opposing playing pieces that have their identities hidden from the opponent.
The game simulates armies at war trying to overpower, misinform, outflank, outmaneuver and destroy each other. It optimizes using logic, memory, and spatial skills. It simulates the "fog of war" because the identities of the opposing pieces are hidden from each player and can only be guessed at by their location, movements, or from the results of challenges. The game allows only one side's plan to succeed, although a player may change plans during the game. In addition, there are two different ways of winning the game (see below). Certain strategies and tactics, however, allow both sides the chance of securing a better idea of the other's plan as the game progresses. Players can also speak or gesture to their opponents during matches, to create a false impression about the identity of their pieces or their overall strategy.
History
Sofronio H. Pasola, Jr. invented this game with the inspiration of his son Ronnie Pasola.
The Pasolas first tried the Game of the Generals on a chessboard. Even then, the pieces had no particular arrangement. There were no spies in the experimental game; but after Ronnie Pasola remembered the James Bond movies and Mata Hari, he added the Spies. Making the pieces hidden was the idea of the Pasolas after remembering card games.
The Game of the Generals public introduction was on February 28, 1973. After the game was made, it angered many Filipino chess players thinking that Pasola was trying to denigrate or supplant chess.
Objectives and victory conditions
The game's objective is to eliminate or capture the opponent's Flag or to maneuver one's Flag to the far edge of the board (the opposing back rank), subject to the following conditions.
The Flag, if challenged, is eliminated by any opposing piece, including the opposing and challenging Flag. If a player's Flag is eliminated by a challenge, that player loses the game. The Flag that challenges the opponent's Flag wins the challenge and thus wins the game.
When the Flag successfully reaches the opponent's back rank, it has to survive one more turn without being challenged before it can declare a victory. If a Flag reaches the opposing back rank and there is no adjacent opposing piece that can challenge it, the Flag wins the game immediately. If a Flag reaches the opposing back rank directly adjacent to an opposing piece, and that piece does not challenge the Flag immediately on the opponent's subsequent turn, then that Flag wins the game. Any player may reveal their Flag at any time and for any reason, although most often a player reveals their Flag after it has already secured victory at the opposing back rank.
Most games end in a victory for one of the players. One player may have lost so many pieces or their pieces are impractically positioned on the board that they feel they can no longer win the game. However, any player may propose a draw at any time; the opponent can either decline, so play continues, or agree, and thus the game ends in a tie.
At the end of a match, whether as a draw or as a victory for one player, it is courteous but not required to allow the opposing player a view of the surviving pieces before they are taken off the board and of the eliminated pieces.
Equipment
Pieces
The player's set of pieces represents 21 soldiers (combatants) with a hierarchy of ranks and functions. A higher-ranking piece (usually the officers) will eliminate any lower-ranking piece, with the exception of the 2 Spies; the Spies eliminate all pieces except the 6 Privates.
Apart from the Flag (the Philippine Flag) and the Spy (a pair of prying eyes), the rank insignia of the pieces used in the game are those used in the Philippine Army.
The playing pieces are identical-sized plastic or metal flat rectangles bent or molded at a 90-degree- or 80-degree angles. The rank insignia are printed on the rear side to keep them hidden from the opposing player; the game requires that the front side of the pieces should have no distinguishing marks that will help identify the pieces.