Crossword clues for pasang
WordNet
n. large African antelope with long straight nearly upright horns [syn: oryx]
wild goat of Iran and adjacent regions [syn: bezoar goat, Capra aegagrus]
Wikipedia
Pasang is a two-player abstract strategy board game from Brunei. The game is often referred to as Pasang Emas which is actually a software implementation of the traditional board game. The object of this game is to acquire the most points by capturing black and white tokens on the board. Black tokens are worth 1 point, and white tokens are worth 2 points. The board is initially laid out with all 120 black and white tokens in one of over 30 traditional patterns. Players choose a piece called a "ka" which is used to capture the tokens on the board. Each player's "ka" moves around the board capturing as many tokens as possible. As a note, the "kas" are the only mobile pieces in the game. The other pieces are stationary, and are captured by the "kas". Players must capture token(s) during their turn, or lose the game. When all tokens have been captured from the board, the player with the most points is the winner. However, if there are any tokens left on the board, and none can be captured on a player's turn, then that player loses the game, and the other player is the winner.
The game is divided into three phases each with its own rules of capture. All three capturing methods are perhaps unique to Pasang. In the first phase, each player must choose a column of tokens to capture on their side of the board. The empty column left on the board is called a "passage". For the second phase, each player chooses a "ka" from among the tokens next to the passage, or tokens one column away from the passage whichever method both players agree upon. The "ka" then enters the passage and captures any odd number of tokens of the same color that it forms a line with from any orthogonal direction. From there on (third phase), each player's "ka" moves any number of vacant spaces in an orthogonal direction provided it can capture an odd number of tokens of the same color. However, the "ka" at this phase of the game captures tokens differently. If the "ka" is moving vertically (up and down), it can only capture tokens in a horizontal direction that it forms a line with. Likewise, if the "ka" moves horizontally (left and right), then it can only capture tokens in a vertical direction that it forms a line with.
The game is unrelated to any other board game. It is perhaps remotely related to Fanorona. Its resemblance to Fanorona is that several pieces are captured in a particular line, and the pieces cover most of the board in the beginning. There is also a rule in the second and third phase, that an odd number of pieces must be captured reminiscent of the capturing rule in Rimau.
Stewart Culin in his book "Chess and Playing Cards: Catalogue of Games and Implements for Divination" (1898) describes a Malaysian game called Chuki (on pages 871-873) whose board resembles that of Pasang's. The board (called papan chuki) is described as a square board of ten squares in length on both sides which makes for a grid of 11 in length on both sides (an 11 x 11 square grid which equates to 121 intersection points) when the pieces are played on the intersection points instead, and this is depicted on Figure 175 on page 871 where the game pieces (all 120 of them) are situated on the intersection points and not within the squares. Only one intersection point is not occupied by a game piece, and that is the central point of the board which is occupied by a small raised square (called a "tempat mangkok" which translates to "place of bowl") much like that of Pasang. Moreover, there are 60 white pieces and 60 black pieces in Chuki similarly as in Pasang. Due to the bowl (represented by a relatively large white circle) occupying the central point, the four orthogonal line segments next to the central point are omitted from the board on Figure 175; and on Figure 174 which depicts a table game board version of Chuki, the square bowl blocks the central point and the four line segments next to it. Therefore, both figures of Chuki show that the central point of the board and the four line segments next to it are not playable just like in Pasang. But Chuki's rules as described by Culin appears to be a different game from Pasang as it uses three dices which are thrown into the bowl, and the game pieces of the thrower are removed from the board according to the result of the cast. In Pasang there are no dices used, and the cup or bowl has no function in the game as it is used only to store the game pieces. But other descriptions of Chuki which were written as footnotes by other writers on page 872, describe a game called Chuke or Juki as a game resembling draughts, and this was from an 1852 Malay and English dictionary (pages 39, 62) by Crawford. An earlier account in 1835 describes Chuki or Tjoeki as resembling checkers with a 120 small squares with 60 black and 60 white pieces (1835, Roorda van Eysinga, Algemeen Javaansch en Nederduitsch woordenboek, p. 662.). There are other footnotes saying that Tjuki resembles draughts played with white and black beans.
Usage examples of "pasang".
They were about a half of a pasang away, excited, squealing, their snouts hurrying at the turf.
On the pebbled shore, some half pasang away, behind us, I could see smoke from the permanent camp.
I recognised it, and even had I not, the cylindrical pasang stones that marked its length were each inscribed with the sign of the city and the appropriate pasang count to its walls.
Surprisingly, though the pasang stones told me I was close to Ko-ro-ba, stubborn tufts of grass were growing between the stones, and occasional vines were inching out, tendril by tendril, across the great stone blocks.
It was late afternoon and, judging by the pasang stones, I was still some hours from the city.
I had not walked more than a pasang when, from a cluster of trees to my right, on the other side of a thin, swift stream that flowed from the Sardar, I heard the terrified scream of a girl.
The tarnsmen had approached from the dark quadrant, away from the moons, low, not more than a few feet from the ground, hidden by the shadows of the world, and then had, without warning, little more than a quarter of a pasang from the keep, swept into the air, the first wave striking at the wire, the second, third and fourth waves dropping through the cut, billowing wire to the parapets, roofs and courtyard of the keep.
I had run for perhaps half a pasang when I stopped, panting and furious with myself.
Chapter Twelve: THE TWO MULS On a marble circle of some half pasang in width, in the bottom of that vast, brilliantly lit, many-coloured artificial canyon the oval disk diminished its speed and drew to a stop.
Her companions on Everest were: the Tibetans Sonam Norbu, Lotse, Samdrub, Dar Puntso, Pasang, Tshering, Ngapo, and the Chinese Hou Sheng-fu.
She now lay damaged, unmanned, stranded on a bar near the chain, not more than a pasang away.
Their state at that time was sufficiently advanced technologically to construct small steel worlds in orbit, each some pasangs in diameter, The remnants of a shattered species then, as a world burned below them, turned hunting to the plains of the stars.
The largest, on the other hand, the platforms of slave exhibition and the great sales pavilion, lie to your left, two pasangs away, beyond the smithies and the chain shops.
I did not envy the sport slave I stood in the midst of fields south of the Laurius river, some forty pasangs inland from the shore of Thassa, some one hundred and twenty pasangs south of the river port of Lydius, lying at the mouth of the Laurius river, on its farther side.
Along the some seventy pasangs of the wall there were several such chains, with their own pens and facilities.