

The Flag that challenges the opponent's Flag wins the challenge and thus also wins the game. If a player's Flag is eliminated by a challenge, that player loses the game.

The Flag, if challenged, is eliminated by any opposing piece, including the opposing and challenging Flag.

The objective of the game is to eliminate or capture the Flag of the opponent, or to maneuver one's Flag to the far edge of the board (the opposing back rank), subject to the following conditions. After the game was made, it angered many Filipino chess players thinking that Pasola was trying to denigrate or supplant chess. The Game of the Generals ' public introduction was on February 28, 1973. Making the pieces hidden was the idea of the Pasolas after remembering card games. There were no spies in the experimental game but after Ronnie Pasola remembered the James Bond movies and Mata Hari, he added the Spies. Even then, the pieces had no particular arrangement. The Pasolas first tried the Game of the Generals on a chessboard. with the inspiration of his son Ronnie Pasola.

The game allows only one side's plan to succeed, although a player may change plans during the course of the game. It simulates the "fog of war" because the identities of the opposing pieces are hidden from each player and can only be guessed at by their location, movements, or from the results of challenges. It optimizes the use of logic, memory, and spatial skills. The game simulates armies at war trying to overpower, misinform, outflank, outmaneuver, and destroy each other. It is designed for two players, each controlling an army, and a neutral arbiter (sometimes called a referee or an adjutant) to decide the results of "challenges" between opposing playing pieces, that like playing cards, have their identities hidden from the opponent. Its Filipino name is "Salpakan." It can be played within twenty to thirty minutes. The Game of the Generals, also called GG or GOG as it is most fondly called, or simply The Generals, is an educational war game invented in the Philippines by Sofronio H.
