Pentagonia has roots in the ancient row games of Twelve Men's Morris, Nine Men's Morris, and Tic-Tac-Toe. While most people in today's North America are familiar with Tic-Tac-Toe, having learned the game as young children, each of these ancient games enjoyed recurrent periods of widespread popularity in ages past. Depending on the country you resided in, you could have known Nine Men's Morris by such names as:

• Mill or Nine Men's Morris - England,
• Morelles - France,
• Muhle - Germany,
• Linea - Italy, and
• Molenspel - Holland,

Though easier to learn than chess, none of these ancient games achieved a similar stature. The first move advantage that existed within them was substantially greater than the first move advantage that exists in chess. As a result they had much less game play.

The Pentagonia Rules of Play, and five-sided Pentagonia playing board have done much to offset this inadequacy of Pentagonia's ancestor games. Pentagonia truly belongs within that rare class of abstract-strategy board games in which victory is a function of the reasoning processes, and never a function of luck.

What makes Pentagonia New and Unique?

• Four potential game phases create/enhance game play.
  Besides the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat, players
  can derive pleasure from smiting their opponent in the
  first or second phase, or by taking their opponent
  through all four game phases - depending of course,
  on whether they are the stronger or weaker player.

• Rule modifications, and the four potential game phases,
  including our introduction of a jump phase when a
  losing player still has a realistic chance of winning,
  help offset the substantial first move advantage that
  existed in Pentagonia's ancestor games.

• Players must analyze constantly through-out the game:
  when determining which of their game buttons to move
  or place, and where; and, when the opportunity arises,
  which of their opponent's game pieces is best
  removed.

• Every movement or removal of a game button
  impacts on the game, so both players must fully
  immerse themselves in the game if they wish to win.

• Pentagonia is not a culturally specific game,
  or game in which membership in a race or culture
  creates advantages or disadvantages viz. persons
  from other races and cultures.

• Pentagonia is played on a five-sided playing surface
  that is printed on a square non-folding board.

• Players can learn the basics of Pentagonia in minutes.
  It is almost as easy as Tic-Tac-Toe.

• Games can be completed in under 20 minutes.