Designed by Clemente Musa and Steffen Muhlhauser, and published by Steffen-Spiele and Helvetiq, Passo is a quick, easy-to-learn but challenging abstract strategy game for two players.
Passo is played on an initial 5 x 5 grid of tiles. Each player's five discs are placed in a row at alternate ends of the grid (ie: rows 1 and 5). On your turn, you must move one of your discs to any orthogonally or diagonally adjacent tile. Your move can be to an empty tile or to an already occupied tile, in which case you stack your disc on top of the disc already there - effectively pinning it. You can stack on top of your own or your opponent's discs but no stack can be more than three discs high. When your move leaves the tile you came from unoccupied, that tile is removed from the grid - so the game is played on a shrinking grid.
The object of the game is to be the first player to move one of your pieces off of your opponent's edge of the grid. Initially that means five squares from your starting row but if your opponent's starting row has been completely vacated and so removed, then that reduces the distance your pieces have to move before leaving the grid. It's a requirement that you must move a piece on your turn so the alternative win condition is your opponent being unable to make a move.
With such simple rules and mechanics, Passo is a game that can be quickly picked up by children and adults alike but you'll soon realise that, as in Chess, it pays to think at least a few moves ahead. Even with players who think carefully through every move, few games of Passo are likely to stretch much beyond 10 minutes; making this an ideal filler-length strategy game.
And there's more - the game comes with a set of pieces that can be incorporated to give players a single-use once-per-game rule-changing action. We don't recommend using these from the outset but it's good to have the option of incorporating them as a way of further expanding Passo for experienced players.