I. Origins
In 1998, in Atlantic Canada, the idea to create an AI-proof strategy game was conceived. Twenty-seven years later, it has finally been completed. It began as a chess variant yet in 2025 it settled into a synthesis of ancient games sealed into completion with an expanded concept from the ancient Roman game Ludus latrunculorum—a game believed to have been derived from the ancient Greek game of Polis (literally “the city”), praised by the philosopher Plato. In the early years, the concentric rings along with the varying sizes of spheres gave Mur a cosmological appearance. Indeed, the platonic appearance could be argued to be reminiscent of the Egyptian account of Atlantis in Plato’s Critias dialogue—the earliest known account of the legendary city. Inspired by the book of Genesis, around the year 2017, the game pieces were all made to be of the same size which led to the establishment in 2023 of a kraken-hunt theme everyone is familiar with today. The perfect design of the game would not have been possible without the resilient game testing of my dear brother, Renaud, who painstakingly pointed out imperfections to the point that even though the game had been introduced on national radio in 2021, we went so far as to delay production so as to delve back into work for yet another four years.
II. The General Concept
Chess master Rudolf Spielmann once said, ‘Play the opening like a book, the middle game like a magician, and the endgame like a machine.’ Mur was designed to take the ‘machine’ out of chess; game pieces would be removed, not by the opponent, but by the owner who could then re-enter them into play thereby sustaining the ‘magician-like’ part of the game indefinitely. A neutral game piece—the concept of my dear brother, Renaud—was added as a safeguard in the event one player refused to engage with the other player; in Mur, if one does not properly engage his opponent, then the neutral game piece (the kraken) may easily be targeted and the game won.
III. The Board and Game Pieces
Attempting to reduce the game to its simplest, the size and similar template of the ancient Nine Men’s Morris board was chosen. Mur is chess-like and therefore functions through patterns. To give priority to creative tactics, it was decided that instead of having fixed pattern pieces like chess, players would be able to build their own patterns using the pieces themselves as building blocks; therefore, a mancala mechanic was given to a set of generic pieces and their movement options would be based on the varying sizes of constellation-like patterns they were in. The constellation patterns would function as the pips on a die and therefore determine the distance each game piece could move from its group. This mechanic would ensure that each game position, although having similar patterns within it, would yield wildly different consequences.
IV. Knocking and Withdrawing Pieces
Since capturing had been removed as a concept, it became necessary for a game piece to knock another game piece into a weaker position so as to facilitate the goal of surrounding either the kraken or an opposing game piece. Varying strengths of knocking power were introduced so as to create a stimulating strategy where one opponent would wrestle his material against his opponent’s. At first greater knocking power was given to the larger groups but this was found to make the game too volatile. The solution to stabilize the game was to reverse the knocking order so as to give the solitary ‘first class’ game pieces the most strength.
V. Fluidity and Simplicity
It was found that the rule in the ancient Roman game Ludus latrunculorum should be employed; however, instead of moving so as to enclose an opponent’s piece between two of the same color it would be four of the same color—or three if the surrounded game piece was on the third ring. Without this simple ‘closing’ rule, the game would suffer stagnation along with very complicated scenarios involving multiple surroundings between both players. In addition, to all of this, ports were added to dynamically attract some action away from the center and to provide a means to voluntarily withdraw a game piece without making it too easy.
VI. Tangibility, Dynamics, and Stakes
Since there was no elimination of material or territory in Mur, a tangible ‘countdown’ had to be introduced. It was decided that tokens would move along an outer racetrack towards a final goal. Now since the single game pieces could knock every game piece except others of its same kind and since it was noted that this resulted in a priority to establish single game pieces over pairs and groups then, to fully bring out the patterns and make the game more dynamic, the other patterns—groups of two, or three, or four—had to be given a strength priority as well at varying phases. It was decided that the tokens on the outer track would be four-sided dice which could be manipulated so as to acquire triples thereby promoting the strengths of different group sizes dynamically while at the same time providing stakes which would constantly increase on a fixed cycle. A die could now be rolled as a die, pushed as a token and tipped as a counter. Each of these aspects were carefully considered and then painstakingly designed into the final code of play.
VII. Summary of the Matter
Evaluation of synthesis is the highest form of cognition. Being full of tactical richness Chess—a game of applying understanding to new problems—is more popular than Go; however the game of Go is a more complex game involving many battles which finally synthesise into a brilliant finale. Evaluating how everything will synthesise at the end is impossible in Go but slowly becomes clearer as time progresses and the consequences of certain decisions come into view. In Chess, however, the middle game is preferred over the brute calculations involved in the end game.
Mur introduces a new milestone: the opportunity to evaluate tactically. Each move always requires an analysis of position—one cognitive tier above applying understanding to solve new problems—this is because the immediate tactical options of every game piece on the board is immediately affected with the move of a single game piece. Consequently, various creations having wildly different consequences are constantly on the brink of being created and therefore, to outplay a strong opponent, a tactical evaluation of these various creations must constantly be made. In summary, Mur is the first open-system game ever designed and is not only AI proof, but simply the highest question to cognition any strategist could wish to answer.
Desmond R Davies
Inventor of Mur