Leafline is a oppositional stategy game for two teams! It takes place by taking turns moving figurines on an 8-by-8 square lattice. Each lattice point is called a locale. The two teams are called Blue and Orange (Orange moves first). Figurines can stun those of the opposing team by moving into their locale (in accordance with the figurine movement rules described momentarily); stunned figurines are removed from the lattice and placed in the hospital for the remaining duration of the game. The goal is to maneuver the opposing team into a situation where their figurehead would surely be stunned were play to continue!
Each team starts with the following set of figurines:
- eight servants
- A servant can move one locale toward's the opposing team's side, or optionally two locales if he has not previously moved, if these locales are unoccupied. If there is a figurine belonging to the opposing side diagonally and towards the opposing team's side, the sevant may stun it, but servants can't stun moving forward.
- two ponies
- A pony can hop to a destination that is one locale in one direction and two locales away in the orthogonal direction. She doesn't care if any of the "intervening" locales are occupied.
- two scholars
- A scholar can move and stun diagonally while unimpeded by other figurines.
- two cops
- A cop can move and stun in parallel with the lattice of the world while unimpeded by other figurines.
- one princess
- The princess can move like a scholar or a cop.
- one figurehead
- The figurehead can move or stun to an adjacent locale horizontally or diagonally.
There are some other rules which apply in special circumstnaces:
- Servant ascension: if a servant reaches the other team's side, he can transform into a pony, be brevetted into a cop, or transition into a scholar or princess.
- Secret service: if the figurehead and a cop haven't previously moved, then the figurehead can move two locales towards the cop and the cop can sit next to him on the other side.
- Passing by: if a servant takes the option to move two locales its first time, another servant in the right position can pretend he only moved one locale and stun him.
"Leafline" refers both to the oppositional strategy game and this software application in development which aims to someday provide a playable implementation of the game and an artificially-intelligent Leafline play engine. Leafline is written in Rust 1.24.0-nightly!
A web application GUI to Leafline, the Leafline Web Client, is written in Clojure 1.7 and ECMAScript 6.
All the source code is available on GitHub and freely usable under the terms of the MIT License.
Any resemblance to other popular games is not to be discussed!