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Gameplay and Rules
This page describes the current implemented rules in the digital project. It corresponds to the written report's "Rules of Play" section, but adds links back into the source code so readers can connect the player-facing rules to the implementation.
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Labyrinth: the 6x6 toroidal board. Leaving one edge wraps to the opposite edge. -
Omen: one of the four Jack cards that assigns a suit family to a role. -
Roles: Walls block movement, Traps reduce health, Ballista cards create line movement, and Weapons become combat cards. -
Traversing: the main movement phase. -
Appeasing Pan: the second phase where both players play a hand card to win request priority. -
Requests: Restructure, Steal Life, Ignore Us, and Plane Shift.
Force the opponent to 25 or more total damage before you reach that threshold yourself.
Each match starts with three separate card groups:
- The Ace-through-9 cards form the shuffled 6x6 labyrinth.
- The four Jacks are set aside as Omens.
- The draft pool is the 12 high cards: four Satyrs (
10), four Oracles (Queen), and four Heroes (King).
A coin flip decides who drafts first. Players alternate picks until ten cards have been taken. All Satyrs and Oracles are drafted, but only two Heroes may be drafted. The two Heroes left behind become the player identity cards.
After the draft, the four Jacks are revealed in order. That order assigns each suit family to one of four current roles:
WallsTrapsBallistaWeapons
A card keeps its suit for the whole match, but the suit's effect depends on the current Omen mapping. A later Restructure request can swap those role assignments mid-game.
Traversing is the main board phase.
- The board is a
6x6toroidal grid. - Leaving one edge wraps to the opposite edge.
- A Traversing cycle contains
6total turns:3for each player. - The active player alternates after every move, pickup, or forced pass.
- The current implementation begins Traversing with Player 2.
On a Traversing turn, the active player may either move one tile or spend the turn interacting with the card on their current tile.
- A move into a Wall is illegal.
- A Wall tile also cannot be picked up from the current tile.
- Landing on a Trap adds that card to the triggering player's damage pile.
- Picking up a Trap from the current tile does the same.
- The Trap card is removed from the board, which creates a hole.
- Landing on or picking up a Weapon adds that card to the player's normal hand.
- Weapons stay in the same hand used for Appeasing Pan.
- A card is combat-legal only while its current suit role is
Weapons.
- Landing on a Ballista starts a targeting state instead of applying normal pickup behavior.
- The player may choose any reachable tile in a straight line.
- Ballista paths continue until blocked by a Wall.
- The launch does not trigger the effect of the destination tile.
- If the destination contains the other player, combat starts immediately.
Combat is a temporary substate inside Traversing.
- Combat begins when both players occupy the same tile.
- The moving player chooses a combat card first.
- The opponent chooses second if they also have at least one legal Weapon-role card.
- Each selected weapon card is removed from the user's hand and added to the opponent's damage pile.
Because both players can strike in one combat, collisions can damage both sides in the same event.
After six Traversing turns, the game checks whether both players still have at least one normal hand card.
- If both do, the game enters
Appeasing Pan. - If either player has no hand cards left, Appeasing Pan is skipped and the game returns directly to another Traversing cycle.
During Appeasing Pan:
- Each player submits one hand card.
- The played suits are compared using the phase hierarchy.
- If both cards share the same suit, rank breaks the tie.
- The winner chooses the first Pan request.
The current trump hierarchy is:
Walls > Traps > Ballista > Weapons
The winner chooses one request first. The loser chooses a different request second unless Ignore Us is chosen first and ends the sequence.
- Choose two suits.
- Swap their current Omen role assignments.
- This changes how matching cards behave on the board and in hands.
- Choose one card from your own damage pile.
- Choose one card from the opponent's damage pile.
- Swap those two cards.
- End the request sequence immediately.
- No second request is chosen after this.
- Choose a row or column.
- Choose a direction.
- Wrap that full line by one tile.
- Cards and any player standing on that line move with it.
After requests resolve, the Appeasing loser handles the two cards that were played in the phase.
- Open holes are empty board spaces.
- A space occupied by a player is not a legal hole.
- The loser places the played cards into open holes when possible.
- If fewer holes remain than cards waiting to be placed, the unplaced cards return to that loser's hand.
Some request outcomes can trap a player by leaving them with no legal moves. When that happens, the trapped player is forced to pass their next 3 Traversing turns.
- A player loses immediately when their damage pile reaches
25or more total damage. - The surviving player becomes Pan's champion.
- Card ranks, suits, roles, and damage values:
engine/cards.py - Toroidal board, positions, and Plane Shift row/column movement:
engine/board.py - Typed gameplay actions and request definitions:
engine/actions.py - Main phase transitions, movement, combat, Appeasing Pan, requests, holes, and victory checks:
engine/game_state.py - Gameplay rendering and player prompts:
ui/game_screen.py - Board rendering, tile roles, suit visuals, and coordinate mapping:
ui/board_renderer.py - Regression coverage for the rules on this page:
tests/test_rules.py