Rules

On Sight is a turn based multiplayer game. Here are explained the rules of the game. For help on how to use the game and other user interface questions, please refer to the file README which can be found in the game distribution package.

The game takes place on a board consisting of square tiles. Some squares are walls (white star-like obstacles), and the others are free squares (gray concrete slabs). Units can't move on walls and they can't see through walls.

Every player controls a party of his own. The party consists of a number of units which are seen as filled circles on the map. Every unit has a direction to which it looks. The field of sight of a unit spreads 45 degrees to left and right giving a total of 90 degrees. This field is blocked by walls and other units.

The main rule is the conversion rule: You can steal a unit by looking at its back. More precisely stated, unit X of party A is converted to party B if and only if X is seen by unit Y of party B and Y is not seen by X.

Every turn each player can move all his units by one square, and turn all his units to any direction. A unit can move only to a free square which was seen by the unit's party in the beginning of the current turn. Therefore, you cannot move backwards unless you have another unit "securing the back".

Before a party's turn begins, an empty screen is shown saying something like "Turn 13, click mouse" along with the symbol of the party whose turn it is. During this, all other players must turn away from the monitor. Only the player in turn is allowed to see the game board.

All squares that can not be seen by the current party are dimmed. This field of visibility is updated not until the player ends his turn by pressing the 'Move Done' button. After that, the player can see the updated game situation where all unit conversions have been done for the played turn. Then, by pressing the 'End Turn' button, the player ends his turn allowing the next player to take place.

The game ends when all units have been converted to a single party. That party wins the game. The game ends also if every party has skipped its turn consecutively. In such a case, the winning party is the one who controls most of the game board squares. A square is owned by the party that has an active unit strictly closer to the square than any other party. If there are two or more "closest" active units, the square is not owned by any party. An active unit of a party is such a unit of that party which has belonged to that party during the latest turn of that party. (This additional activeness rule is needed because there are situations where a unit changes side every turn and can't be moved by any party. These units are constantly inactive.)

Page updated on Friday 2001-12-21 by Ville Nurmi <ville@users.sourceforge.net>