Sounds like you want a multiplayer boardgame with no dice or card decks...

Chinese Checkers (the one played on a 6-pointed star shaped board, rules similar to checkers) was the first one that popped into my head...

Chinese checkers sounds like a good choice in the domain of "classics", that is, you wont take hours explaining it to people and there isnt anythin too cryptic about its rules, plus it''s one of the only games I know that is designed to be played up to 6 people without much difference in gameplay

Otherwise there is tons of good games if you go in a good game store and look up boardgames. Although your requirement of perfect information might start being harder to keep.

Connect4 is not designed to be played with more than 2, but if you really think about it, you can do a multiplayer tictactoe, you simply make a large grid to play on, and choose how many of your symbols you have to align to win (we used to play 4 people at a time in the back of the class...)

Another nice game I know is called Hexx. You play on an hexagonal grid, and each turn you can either move one of your piece by two hexs (jumping over any other piece), or you can "replicate", in which case you move only by one unit, but you create a new piece. In both cases, any pieces adjacent to the one you moved in turned to your colour.
If you dont understand, download the game (it''s shareware), it''s pretty old, but it''s damn interesting to play, and I am sure with a grid big enough you could play up to 6 people.



Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

Ah, if you are interested in downloading it, you have to look it up on an Abandonware site like www.freeoldies.com
My mistake, BTW, the name of the game is Hexxagon. The first is the shareware that was distributed on the Net, while the second (Hexxagon 2) is the registered version.

The rules are prettu simple :
on an hexagon based board (the board is also an hexagon), each player start with one piece at opposite ends of the board.
Each turn, one can move one piece oh his :
either move one piece on a free adjacent cell, in which case you dont actually move but duplicate the piece (think of it as putting a new piece of your colour on the board like in Go, with the restriction that you can only put next to an existing piece of yours). In this fashion, you slowly fill up the board with your pieces.
or you can actually move a piece, displacing it. In this case you can move by two units (no less, though), jumping over any occupied cell, but the replicating effect is lost (a normal move like, say, the knight in chess).
In both cases you cant play on occupied cells.
In both cases, once you have played, all pieces present in the cells adjacents to the one you end up in (either the landing point of your "jump", or the cell where you put a new piece) turn to your colour. This means that you can change up to 6 pieces to your side (a bit similar to Othello, except that here the rule for changing colour is simply proimity instead of enprisonment). In this fashion you can slowly turn other existing but poorly defended pieces to your side.

The ultimate goal is to fill the whole board with your colour.
The board itself, as I said, is hexagonal, but it can be modified to present empty/void cells where you cant move (but you can jump over), which present some interesting challenges.

Again, my explanations are quite lengthy, while playing the game will have you understand it in a matter of seconds
When you play the game, you select one of your pieces, at this point the game highlights the adjacents free cells in green (the cells where you can replicate), and the free cells one unit away in yellow (the cells you can jump to). Simply click again on the unit to cancel that move, or on one of the free cells, and you''re done. Simple and elegant.

It''s pretty old though, I wonder if it works on WinXP as it seems this damn system has some massive dislike of old MSDOS goodies...

anyway If you dont find the game yourself, tell me, I''ll post a direct link (I dont do that now ''cause you have to do a bit of work too !)


Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !