DIY Board Game: Checkers

When was the last time you played a board game? And I don’t mean opening an app on your phone. Can you remember when you sat down with another human and picked up the pieces to a board game? With our DIY Checkers Board you can quickly create a favorite board game. ( perfect for traveling too!) So turn off your TV, put down the phone and stretch your brain muscles. Game night coming right up!

Fun Fact: Checkers, called Draughts in most countries, has been traced back to the 1300s.

How to create your checkers board:

Grab a heavy piece of cardstock …in any color you’d like and draw an 8x8 inch large square in the middle. Sharpies are ideal here! Don’t forget to use a ruler! Straight lines are essential!

Next draw lines 1 inch apart from top to bottom and also side to side. This will create your 64 square grid needed to play.

Time to color! Drawing in every other square: make them solid, striped or whatever you desire. No 2 empty squres should touch.

All you need is pieces to play. Grab whatever you have laying around: buttons, paper clips, binder clips... You need 12 pieces for each color. Here I choose our regular size paper clips for the pieces and the jumbo ones once one is kinged!

Now to learn how to play….

These are the standard US rules for Checkers:

First you need a partner! Checkers is played by two players. Each begins with 12 colored pieces usually red and black but here we used our paper clips.

Typically Black moves first. Players then alternate. (here you can flip a coin to decide who goes first)

In the beginning of the game: if it is your turn, you can move your piece one space forward in a diagonal direction to a dark square only. To win a game you need to move your pieces towards your opponent's side of the board. You can move quicker by jumping your opponent's pieces and then removing them from the board.

To capture: jump over their piece by moving two diagonal spaces in the direction of the checker, like you are hopping over your opponent's piece. Once you have jumped over them you can take that piece off the board! 

But don’t forget! A space on the other side of your opponent’s checker must be empty to move to it.

A rule to remember: If you have the chance to jump your opponent, you have to take it.

If you capture a piece you only get to move forward once. But if your new spot gives you another opportunity to snag another piece, you can keep going until you can't jump any more.

 When a piece reaches the furthest row from the player who controls that piece, it is crowned and becomes a king. In traditional checkers one of the pieces, which already has been captured would be placed on top of the ‘king’ so it is twice as high as a regular piece. Here we used our jumbo paper clips in place for a king.

Kings are limited to moving diagonally, but can move forward and backward, so it's easier for kings to capture your opponent's checkers.

A player wins the game when the opponent cannot make any more moves.

Game on!

this craft was inspired by this post on Scissors and Sage