DONUTS

I played DONUTS on BoardGameArena.com. It is a 2-player abstract game in which you try to form a line of five donuts of your colour. The first player to do this wins. 

On the board the spaces are divided by a line in different orientations, and this is an important part of the game. 

When you place your donut, the line on the space determines where your opponent must play next. It must be aligned with that line on your space. This is how you restrict where your opponent can play next. You need to be careful not to leave him no place to play a donut, because if that happens, he gets to play anywhere instead. It is dangerous to give your opponent this much freedom. 

Early game

White is on the verge of winning

There is one special rule which allows you to convert opponent donuts to yours. This works in the opposite manner from Othello / Reversi. When you form an uninterrupted row of your colour with both ends being the opponent colour, you can flip those two opponent donuts to become yours. This is a bit tricky and when I first played it was unintuitive. I easily missed opportunities and also was not able to defend against it well. In the screenshot above, there are two black donuts in the second row. If a white donut is placed between them, they would both be flipped to the white side. 

White wins

I only realised after playing the game that it is by Bruno Cathala. This is a perfect information and luckless game. It's a serious game that will have you pondering several moves ahead. Yet the play time is short.