Ishidō: The Way of Stones

Moby ID: 4253
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

Ishido is a solitaire board game played with tiles, similar to Shanghai. The objective is to place all of the tiles onto the board and obtain the highest possible score by following specific rules of play. There are ways to play that can dramatically increase the score, which makes the game very strategic in nature. Additionally, when desired, the player can get an oracle reading by asking a question, which is answered when the player makes a very elegant play (four-way match).

There is also a "construction set" where players can create their own tiles and backgrounds. The game comes with numerous tile sets and backgrounds.

Spellings

  • 石道 - Japanese spelling

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (DOS version)

12 People (8 developers, 4 thanks)

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 68% (based on 17 ratings)

Players

Average score: 2.8 out of 5 (based on 13 ratings with 0 reviews)

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Discussion

Subject By Date
Some interesting development history Andrew Fisher (697) Nov 29, 2022

Trivia

Development

Producer Brad Fregger:

The Ishido story is full of interesting trivia but my favorite is the story of Ian Gilman the programmer for the original Macintosh version. Ian was 14 when he sent me his first Mac game and while I never published it, I was extremely impressed. By the time Ishido came around I knew that I wanted him to do the game. Trouble was he lived on Bainbridge Island across the water from Seattle and I lived in Sunnyvale, California; this meant that I would be long distance managing a kid who wasn't even 18 yet. The original publisher, EPYX, wouldn't hear of it. They wanted Ishido to be their lead product for the Christmas season and they didn't want to trust it to a kid who lived on an island 1000 miles from where we were. I finally convinced them to give him a chance but their agreement depended on Ian coming to San Francisco to be interviewed by their technical people. This was a problem, we were a small development company and I couldn't afford to fly him down and pay all his expenses. I called him, "Ian, good news and bad news...we got a chance for you to do Ishido, but you've got to come down here and be interviewed and I can't afford the expenses."

"I have to come to San Francisco right away?" he asked.

"Yep...as soon as possible."

"Well my girlfriend won a trip to San Francisco on the radio last night and were scheduled to come this Friday. Is that soon enough?"

Miracles do happen...he came down, passed the test and did a terrific job...not only on Ishido, but on Heaven and Earth also...two fantastic games.

You can read the rest of the story in my book, "Lucky That Way".

Macintosh version

Ishido was originally released on the Macintosh in 1989 and published by Publishing International. The Macintosh version earned 5 mice from MacUser Magazine (their highest rating). A few years later, Interplay published the Macintosh version as one of their intial MacPlay products.

Awards

  • Amiga Joker
    • Issue 01/1991 – #4 Best Strategy Game in 1990

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Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 4253
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Brad Fregger.

Genesis added by chirinea. PC-98, PC-88, MSX added by Infernos. Lynx added by Allyson Alt. NES added by Alaka. Amiga added by Martin Smith. Macintosh added by Terok Nor. FM Towns added by Unicorn Lynx. Sharp X68000 added by j.raido 【雷堂嬢太朗】.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Patrick Bregger.

Game added June 8, 2001. Last modified January 27, 2024.