Table of Contents
Deckfish
A two-player game of map reduction and suit collection where the player with the most of their least collected Decktet suit wins.
- Designer: Alfonso Velasco (Donegal)
- Coder: mcd
- Rules at the Decktet Wiki
- Deckfish at BoardGameGeek
- More Decktet Games at Abstract Play
From the rules:
Deckfish is an abstract game for two players in which players collect cards by moving 3 tokens around a map made up of a grid of cards. Token movement is dictated by the suits on the cards. At the end, the symbols of each suit on the collected cards are counted and the final score is the number of symbols of the suit with the lowest symbols.
The suit powers (token movement abilities) are:
- Moons: Jump orthogonally over gaps.
- Suns: Move one or two cards diagonally.
- Waves: Move orthogonally until the last unobstructed card.
- Leaves: Move orthogonally onto any card with no neighboring obstacles.
- Wyrms: Move orthogonally onto the first occupied card, bumping that piece to the next card.
- Knots: Make three orthogonal one-card moves, without backtracking.
In the rules, the “first” player is the player who places second in the placement phase but moves first in the movement phase, but at Abstract Play the first player is the one who places first but moves second. This is implemented using an automatic pass for the appropriate player.
The rule is enforced that, even when the last player is already winning, he must continue playing until he is out of moves.
AI generated, Human reviewed
Deckfish
A Decktet game of shrinking the map and collecting suits. When no possible moves remain, the winner is whoever has the most of their least-collected suit.
Inventor: Alfonso Velasco (Donegal)
Rules
Goal
The per-suit score is the total number of cards collected of that suit. Your final score is the smallest of those six suit totals. Highest such score wins. Ties are broken with the next-lowest total, and so on.
Note that play continues until neither player can move, even if someone already leads on score. (This issue may eventually be fixed.)
Setup
A grid of Decktet cards. Players place tokens in the setup phase, then move them in the main phase of the game.
On Abstract Play, the player who places first moves second (using an automatic pass).
Gameplay
Placement: occupy cards according to the opening rules.
Movement: spend a collected suit's power (or the matching card) to move your token:
- Moons: jump orthogonally over gaps.
- Suns: one or two cards diagonally.
- Waves: orthogonally until the last unobstructed card.
- Leaves: orthogonally onto a card with no neighbouring obstacles.
- Wyrms: orthogonally onto the first occupied card, bumping that token onward.
- Knots: three orthogonal one-card steps without backtracking.
Collect suits from cards you claim as the map shrinks.
Further details
Abstract Play
Hands and some card identities follow the usual Decktet privacy rules. Suit powers are listed in the implementation notes.
Version history
- Current engine version:
20250906(2025-09-06). On Abstract Play since 2025-11-14.