Board Game Apparatus with Variable Game Surface and Method of Play

A method for playing a game, the method comprising the steps of:

• providing a game apparatus including sets of distinguishable playing pieces with gates and stones, surface tiles with marks disposed thereupon, and dice;
• assigning each player one of said sets of playing pieces, a number of surface tiles, and dice;
• forming a game surface from placement of said surface tiles in a pattern, wherein said pattern is established for each game by each player, in rotation, placing one of said surface tiles on flat surface;
• setting up an arrangement of said playing pieces, wherein said arrangement is established for each game by each player, in rotation, placing one of said playing pieces upon said marks of said surface tiles forming said game surface;
• playing by each respective player in rotation performing one of a number of acts selected from the group consisting of moving one of said playing pieces to an empty mark on said surface tiles, jumping over and removing at least one playing piece of another player with a playing piece of said respective player, attacking another player's playing piece with a respective player's playing piece wherein as a result of the attack one of said playing pieces of the respective player or another player loses and is removed from said game surface, building a built gate by combining two adjacently located stones of said respective player, and breaking one of said built gates by separating one of said stones of said respective player onto an adjacent empty mark;
• and
• ending the game based on a condition, wherein said condition is selected from the group consisting of only a winning player's playing pieces remaining on said game surface, a draw where playing pieces of each player are able to continually move away from each other, and a winning player having a higher total score based upon prescribed values assigned each of said gates and stones at the end of a prescribed time period.

A game apparatus comprising:

• at least two distinguishable sets of playing pieces including gates and stones;
• at least two sets of surface tiles with marks disposed in a square matrix thereupon for establishing a player created game surface and wherein said sets of surface tiles include those of a first set having four marks and those of a second set having three marks and a blank space;
• and
• at least two pairs of dice for determining which player initiates creating said game surface and which player's piece remains on said game surface during particular turns.