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Ferex Max
Ar 230,000
Take the throne.
One of you commands the Queen's army and holds the ring. The other plays the Robber, circling closer every turn. A battlefield of brains, bluff, and bold moves, designed and drawn in Madagascar.
From Ar 230,000
- Designed and made in Madagascar
- Original art by Mat Li
- 36 hand-finished pieces
The pieces, first drawn on paper. Antananarivo.
About the game
Same board. Opposite jobs.
Ferex is asymmetric. The Queen sits at the centre of a circular board, ringed three deep by defenders, and moves one of them a single space per turn. The Robber circles the outer ring, never slowing, taking the first defender in his line each time he stops. Neither side gets the other's tools.
It started as a peg solitaire board, the kind that sits on hotel tables across Madagascar, rebuilt from memory by a group of ten-year-olds.
- Players
- 1 · 2 · 4
- Play time
- 10–30min
- Age
- 6+
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The Queen can win by losing
Take too many defenders and the ring thins until she has the cover to run. Four left on the board and she is gone.
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One trap, set in the open
Five defenders in a V, facing the way the Robber travels. Come to rest inside it and the game ends on the spot.
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Chaos cuts both ways
Sixteen cards across three decks. One hands you your opponent's side for a turn. You may hold only one, so timing is most of the skill.
The shelf
Pick your edition
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Ferex: Limited Edition
Ar 920,000
Made in Madagascar
Born on a journey. Made by many hands.
Ferex began on a journey through Madagascar, on a simple peg solitaire board. But if it was born here, we wanted it to belong here too. So its characters, its pieces, its cards and its box were all drawn, modelled, painted and shaped by people in Antananarivo.
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A board on a hotel table
A group of friends travelling through Madagascar found a simple peg solitaire board. They played. They changed the rules. Somewhere along the way, a new game began.
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Its own characters
If Ferex was born in Madagascar, it had to belong to Madagascar too. It needed its own faces and its own identity. That is when we met Mat Li.
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Off the page
His drawings became 3D models. The models became prototypes. For the first time, we could hold the characters we had imagined.
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Made by people here
Ferex was never going to be simply produced. Characters were painted by hand. Metal was shaped. Piece by piece, the game came together in Malagasy workshops.
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Then the details
The cards. The packaging. Until eventually, there it was: a game that began between friends, shaped by artists, makers and many hands, and made here.
The people whose hands are on it.
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Illustrator
Mat Li
Every character in Ferex is his: the Queen, the Robber, the watchers, archers and bodyguards, and the Kalanoro. He gave the game its faces before it had any pieces.
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Painter
Rolen
The figurines are painted by hand at Rolen's bench, one at a time. That is where the limited edition gets its colour, and most of its hours.
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Metal artist
Soa Vay
The limited edition's board is shaped from metal by hand in Soa Vay's workshop, the way the cut-metal work of Antananarivo has always been made.
What's in the box
One board, three rings, thirty-six defenders.
Sixteen spaces on the outer ring, twelve in the middle, eight around the Queen. Every character was drawn by Mat Li and built into a piece you can pick up.
Standard edition pieces and board are 3D printed. The limited edition is a hand-made metal board with hand-painted figurines.
- 36
- Defenders: 16 watchers, 12 archers, 8 bodyguards
- 16
- Cards across three decks
- 2
- Queen and Robber pieces
- 2
- Turn token and bodyguard crown
- 1
- Circular board, ringed three deep
- 1
- Kalanoro miniature, for the four-player game
- 1
- Illustrated rulebook with the full story
Card, move, capture.
The Robber always takes the first turn, and cards always resolve before anything moves. Which is why holding one is a decision, not a formality.
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Step 1
Play a card, or hold it
One card, or none at all. You may only hold one at a time, and cards always resolve before anything on the board moves.
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Step 2
Move
The Robber slides clockwise: at least a quarter of the outer ring, at most the whole circle, and he chooses where to stop. The Queen moves one defender one space.
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Step 3
Capture, then check
The first defender in the Robber's line toward the Queen comes off the board; the inner ring is out of his reach. Then check: trap sprung, four defenders left, or the Robber at the centre.
The printable rulebook is on its way.
How many people can play?
One, two, or four. Solo Mode is a puzzle against the board, Classic Duel is Queen against Robber, and Team Battle is two against two, with one player on each team moving the pieces while the other runs the cards. There is no three-player mode.
How long does a game take?
Ten to fifteen minutes on your own. Twenty to thirty for the two-player and four-player games.
What age is it for?
Six and up. The moves themselves are simple: slide, capture, jump. The difficulty lives in when you choose to use them rather than in the rules.
How do you win?
The Queen wins by catching the Robber in a V-Trap, or by escaping once four or fewer defenders are left on the board. The Robber wins by reaching her centre space untrapped. The game ends the moment either happens.
Can I play it on my own?
Yes. Solo Mode takes the Queen off the board and leaves the classic Solo Noble puzzle: jump defenders over one another until one is left. Finishing with that last piece in the centre is the perfect clear.
Why does the limited edition cost four times as much?
The standard edition's board and pieces are 3D printed and packed in a raffia bag. The limited edition is a hand-made metal board with figurines painted by hand, one at a time, in a collector's pouch.
Almost all of the difference is hours. A run of the limited edition is small because there is a limit to how many of these one person can finish properly, which is also why it sells out.
Where does it ship from, and what does shipping cost?
Every copy is packed and posted from Antananarivo, Madagascar. Put your address into checkout and the exact rate for it is quoted there, before you are asked to pay for anything — we would rather show you the real number than publish an average that turns out to be wrong for where you live. A boxed copy weighs about a kilogram.
If your country charges import duty or tax when the parcel arrives, that is set by your country rather than by us, and it is not included in the price on this page.
What happens if it arrives damaged, or a piece is missing?
Email us the order number from your confirmation email — it starts with a # — along with a photo of the problem. A person reads it and replies. The photo matters: it saves a round trip of questions and lets us see straight away whether it happened in the post or at our bench.