1. Halma is played on a 16-by-16 square board. The corners of the board are marked to facilitate set-up.

2. Each player selects 19 BEADs (2 player game) or 13 BEADs (4 player game) the colour of their choice.

3. BEADs are placed on the marked corners. In a 2-player game, players use opposite corners.

4. Players decide who begins the game by rolling a die.

1. In turns, each player moves 1 BEAD 1 space horizontally, vertically or diagonally to an empty play space.

2. Players can also move their BEADs by jumping over another BEAD onto an empty space beyond.

3. Jumps can be chained together if, upon completing the jump, there is a BEAD adjacent and an empty space beyond.

4. A player can jump over their own BEAD or their opponent’s.

To win, a player must move all their BEADs to their opponent’s starting position on the opposite end of the board.

1. Halma meaning ''jump'' in Greek is a board game invented in 1883 or 1884 by George Howard Monks, a US thoracic surgeon at Harvard Medical School.

2. In 1892 another variant was published in Germany, called Stern-Halma. This had a star-shaped board, rather than the original square board of halma, but the rules were largely unchanged. Also in 1948 a variant of this game called grasshopper was published, allowing play with a standard draughts set