Dameo
The object is to leave your opponent without a valid move, either by capturing all his pieces, or by blocking them completely. Draws may occur by mutual impotence or three-fold repetition of moves.
A "line of men" means a straight unbroken orthogonal or diagonal line of men of the same color. A man or a line of men moves one square forward, either orthogonally or diagonally. A man ending its move on the opponent's back rank promotes to king.
Kings move like Chess queens, any number of unobstructed squares orthogonally or diagonally.
Although pieces may move diagonally, all captures follow horizontal and vertical (i.e. orthogonal) lines only. Men may capture forwards, backwards and sideways by the short leap. Kings may move queenwise, but they capture only rookwise, by the long leap.
Capturing, whether by men or kings, is compulsory. Multiple captures may be made in the same turn. The captured pieces are only removed at the end of the turn, and it is not allowed to jump over the same piece twice in that turn, although vacant squares may be passed over more than once.
Majority capture takes precedence: if a player has a choice of capturing options, he must choose the option that results in the largest number of pieces being captured (kings and men counting equally).
Croda
Included as a variant, even though the game precedes Dameo, is Croda, a draughts game invented in 1995 by Ljuban Dedic of Croatia, 1989 Checkers champion of former Yugoslavia.
Croda actually was the inspiration to invent Dameo. Many things are equal between the two - apart from an other initial position, there are only some differences in movement.
In Croda, there's no linear movement - a man only moves on his own. And a king moves as a rook in chess: any number of unobstructed squares orthogonally. All the other rules of Dameo equally apply to Croda.
Dameo is just one of the games invented by Christian Freeling; they can all be seen, and some of them played, on the internet in the MindSports ArenA.
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