Space is a light, brief, blockade game where the last player who can move a runner wins.

There are ten blue pawns, ten yellow pawns and one green neutral pawn. Two blue runners and two yellow runners. The board is a 5 x 5 grid. Put all the pieces on the board in random positions. Blue removes one blue pawn and yellow removes one yellow pawn. These are the two spaces, unoccupied positions.

Players can only move pieces of their colour, while both players can move neutral. Pawns are moved to an orthogonally adjacent position, as long as it is unoccupied. Runners are moved as far as they want across a row or column as long as they land on an unoccupied position. A turn involves moving a pawn and a runner, in either order, and moving the pawn is optional. If you can't move your runner, you lose.
 

How good is this game?
Well I think it's the bees knees, whatever that means.
But a better question might be What is the role of this game?

Construction notes:
Currently a 9 x 9 inches (23 x 23 cm.) paper board.
The game doesn't have the smoothest setup. It would help to have uniform discs for all the pieces, with a design on the runners. Or cubes. Or is it still better to have more vertical runners? No, discs are best. I even know the symbol for the runners.

One way to construct it is by using Reversi/Othello pieces. They can be split using pliers, like Atlantis Chess. These can be reassembled, so you have white or black pieces. Chase the Base shows the way for easily putting rugged dots on the pieces. That's nice, but say goodbye to the blue and yellow colours. Green .. Also you need Othello pieces.

I want to use little wood discs. Some of them have curved edges. But that means painting, and also ..

Plastic discs are the way to go.

But what do we do to differentiate the runners? There are four approaches, and they all involve headaches.

1. There's the symbol plan. Will it be sufficiently visible? A friend of mine claims he knows someone who will get his CNC router going (with an eye toward Colour Dice). But it's like co-ordinating with a ferret. Have you ever tried co-ordinating with a ferret?
2. Drilling a hole. How do you get it in the centre? Will it be smooth on the surface in the end? What size hole?
3. Attaching a dot, like Chase the Base. What colour? Some combination of glue, scotch tape and nail polish. Is there a preferable shape rather than a dot?
4. Drawing a dot. Various problems.
 

I think I'll make a push for wood discs. So what about the board?

Ludological notes: