Pacru is the most complex of a series of three games by Mike Wellman (Shacru, Azacru and Pacru). Each game is for 2 to 4 players, using player-colored chevrons and tokens to control spaces on a sudoku-style board.

Coder: Aaron Dalton (Perlkönig)

A player wins when they meet at least one of the following victory conditions:

• Control (have a friendly marker on) at least 42 fields at the end of your turn (28 fields in 3 player games, 24 fields in 4 player games).
• Leave the opponent (last remaining opponent in 3 and 4 player games) with no legal non-rotating moves. Capturing their last chevron is sufficient but not necessary to leave them with no legal non-rotating moves. Note that one cannot rotate any chevron unless at least one friendly chevron could make a legal non-rotating move.

A turn consists of either rotating a friendly chevron (and marking the requisite fields neutral), or moving a friendly chevron (which may cause some effects like marking one or more fields or capturing an opposing chevron). Passing is not allowed.

Do one of the following:

• Rotate a chevron 45° and mark two unoccupied friendly fields neutral (ie, fields which have no chevron of either color, but are marked with your color)
• Rotate a chevron 90° and mark four unoccupied friendly fields neutral (ie, fields which have no chevron of either color, but are marked with your color)

If the only available legal action is to reorient (ie, you cannot legally move any of your chevrons to another field), then you are eliminated and all your chevrons are removed from the board (but your fields stay marked with your color, which is important in 3 and 4 player games).

• Chevrons move in a straight line either in the direction they are pointing, or 45° oblique to said direction. They end their move pointing in the direction moved.
• Chevrons may move up to `max(1, fields-with-friendly-markers-in-the-borderland-the-chevron-started-in)` fields. eg, if a chevron started in a borderland with no friendly fields, that chevron may still move 1 field, and if the chevron started in a borderland with 4 friendly fields, that chevron may move up to 4 fields.
• Chevrons may not move onto an opposing field (ie, a field with an opposing marker), nor may chevrons move onto other chevrons, unless two or more different friendly chevrons could move to the same square occupied by an opposing chevron, in which case this rule may be ignored (see the section on capturing for more info).
• Chevrons may not move directly over other chevrons (of any color), unless both the starting and ending fields are marked friendly. Note that moving over marked fields of any color is fine in any case, it's only chevrons which cannot be moved over in general.

• In any scenario where an opponents' marker is replaced with one of your own, return the marker to your opponent.
• If you move a chevron from one borderland to another, and/or from a friendly field to another friendly field (with one or more neutral or non-friendly fields between them) without jumping over any chevrons (of either color), you are eligible to mark 1 or more fields with your color. If only one of these conditions apply, you must mark field(s) accordingly, if both apply, you must choose one or the other.
  • If you move a chevron from one borderland to another, mark with your color any neutral unoccupied field in the destination borderland. This can be the field you just moved to. If the only neutral fields in the destination borderland are also occupied, no new marker is gained. If there are no neutral fields in the destination borderland (regardless of whether or not they're occupied), mark any unoccupied field in that borderland with your color.
  • If you move from a friendly field to another friendly field without jumping over any chevrons (of either color), mark with all intervening fields with your color.
• If two or more of your chevrons can move to the field occupied by an opposing chevron without jumping, the opponent's chevron may be captured. To capture, move your chevron to the field, remove the enemy chevron and mark the destination field with your color. Note that if only one friendly chevron can legally move onto the enemy chevron, the enemy chevron cannot be captured.

• At the end of your move (and after any capture mentioned above which may apply), you have achieved a Meeting if the following applies:
  • The chevron which moved is on a field with a marker of your color
  • The chevron is adjacent to and facing another friendly chevron facing back (ie, nose-to-nose) which is also on a field with a marker of your color
  • Your opponent has 9 (or more) markers
• When you have achieved a meeting, mark an unoccupied field with your color anywhere on the board. The field does not need to be neutral.
• Note that you may not rotate into a meeting ie, the chevron must have moved from one field to another.

Note that while you must capture if your move makes you eligible for it, there is no obligation to make a move which captures fields or chevrons, nor to maximize captures (unlike draughts). Multiple of the top-level bullet points above can be triggered by the same move, resulting in capturing fields by multiple means in one turn.

Chevron: the angular playing pieces the players move around
Field: one of the 81 spaces on the board. A field is red (or blue) if it has a red (or blue) marker on it, and neutral otherwise. A field is occupied if it contains a chevron, and unoccupied otherwise
Borderland: one of the 9 outlined 3×3 regions on the board. Each borderland contains 9 fields. Note that the borderland is the region itself, not the lines between

• Pacru at BoardGameGeek
• Pacru at Wikipedia
• Shacru, Azacru, and Pacru at Pacru.com
• The rules at Pacru.com (PDF)
• Azacru is also available at Abstract Play and this wiki
• Realm is a similar but unrelated game that's also available at Abstract Play

A territory-control game where directional pieces navigate a subdivided board to claim cells.

Inventor: Mike Wellman

See BoardGameGeek: Pacru. 9×9 board of tiles with chevrons that face a compass direction. Supports 2, 3, or 4 players.

Control the most tiles when the game ends (no legal moves, or a player is eliminated). Meetings and conversions follow the 2011 rules.

Chevrons start on the published 2p/3p/4p arrays (for two players: a3, e1, i3, i9 vs a7, e9, i7, a1 with the facings in the engine). Tiles under chevrons belong to their owners as play proceeds.

On your turn move one of your chevrons forward in the direction it faces, or change facing, according to Pacru’s movement chart (orthogonal and diagonal steps, bounded by the 9×9 grid). Landing claims or converts tiles. Meetings (confrontations that transform pieces) only trigger once at least one opponent has at least nine tiles on the board.

No engine variants.

• Current engine version: 20250205 (2025-02-05). On Abstract Play since 2025-02-19.

• Meetings require an opponent to hold at least nine tiles first (2011 rule change).

• https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6803/pacru