Ishidó: The Way of Stones

Summary

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). The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive port was infamously at the center of the Sega v. Accolade trial of October 31, 1991, Sega filed suit against Accolade in the United States District Court on charges of trademark infringement and unfair competition. Sega argued that Accolade had infringed upon its copyrights because Accolade's games contained Sega's material through reverse engineering of Sega's tech in order to avoid paying license fees. Ultimately, Accolade was ruled in violation on April 3, 1992, when Judge Caulfield ruled in favor of Sega and issued an injunction prohibiting future sales by Accolade of Genesis-compatible games incorporating the Sega message or using the results of the reverse engineering. Almost a week later, Accolade was also required by the court to recall all of their Genesis-compatible games.