Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Tako Judo – the timeless sport of octopus wrestling – is an abstract strategy game for 2 to 4 players in which the object is to prevent your opponent(s) from being able to move.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Area Movement
Move pieces between connected regions rather than along individual spaces.
Enclosure
Surround spaces or pieces to claim territory, capture, or score.
Pattern Building
Place elements to create arrangements that satisfy scoring or action patterns.
Team-Based Game
Players compete in fixed teams and coordinate toward a shared team result.
Point-to-Point Movement
Move along explicit connections between named locations or nodes.
Read the full game description
Tako Judo – the timeless sport of octopus wrestling – is an abstract strategy game for 2 to 4 players in which the object is to prevent your opponent(s) from being able to move. Played on a 64-square board (for two players) or a 100-square board (for three or four players), each player controls the head and eight tentacles of an octopus. The head takes up a 2x2 square area, and each tentacle takes up one square. Any piece can move like a Chess queen (any distance along an open orthogonal or diagonal line, but without jumping) provided that there is also a clear line of sight between that piece's original location and the head piece for the octopus to which it belongs. A player whose octopus is no longer able to effectively move its head or any tentacles (either move them at all or only harmlessly move a tentacle back and forth between a couple of squares) is pinned and eliminated from the game. Last octopus to move freely controls the sea and wins the game.