Board
Deposit slot
Player Pit
Complete Board
Game Rules
To start, each player has 6 pits with 4 marbles each and an empty deposit slot. The deposit slot for Player 1 is on the right side of the board and on the left for Player 2. To make a move, players gather all the marbles from one of their valid/playable pits and distribute them counterclockwise, one by one, into successive slots, always skipping the opponent's deposit slot.
A pit is valid/playable if it is on the player's side and not empty. They can be distinguished by their color when hovered over.
The player's turn is over if:
- They land in an empty pit on the opponent's side.
- They land in an empty pit on their side and the symmetrically opposite opponent pit is empty.
It is still the player's turn if:
- They land in their own deposit slot.
- They land in an empty pit on their side and the symmetrically opposite opponent pit is not empty. In this case, take the marble from your pit into the symmetrically oppoosite pit, collect all of them, and continue counterclockwise like regular.
The color of the player labels show whose turn it is.
The player with the most marbles in their deposit slot once no marbles are in the pits wins. Ties are possible when each player has 24 marbles in their deposit slots.
Bot
The Gabata Bot looks at all the possible next n levels moves and chooses the one which resulted in the most amount of marbles in the deposit slot. An alternative strategy that could be imployed in future versions is choosing the moves that also lead to less changes in turns to the opponent.
You can choose the strength of the bot by setting the bot level to -1 or a value from 1 to 8. Levels 1 to 8 are the smart bots that make the best move at the chosen depth. Bot level -1 looks at all the possible next 5 moves and chooses the one resulting in the least amount of marbles in the bot's deposit slot. It is difficult to lose to this bot.
You can choose whether you are Player 1 or 2 when playing against the bot. You can change this mid game as well.
You can reset the bot level at any point in the game. Also, you can switch sides with the bot at any point in the game (saves you from looking terrible).
You can also choose whether the bot makes the moves by itself whenever it's its turn by choosing the Bot Automove option under the Bot Settings. This is the default setting. Alternatively, you can have the bot highlight the move it wants to make and wait for you to make the move (convenient for cheating in the real world) by choosing the Player Makes Bot Move option.
Application Features
Whenever you hover over a pit (unless it is on the bot's side), it switches colors to show whether you can start a move the pit or not. It turns lighter when valid and purple when invalid.
Hovering over a valid pit or any of the deposit slots shows the number of marbles in the pit or deposit slot in the bottom display.