Core rules · Dotfight

Page No. 1Date 26 · 9 · 26

Dawood made this game up at school. He and Burooj played it in grades 5 and 6, with ballpoint pens, on the back pages of their exercise books. Nobody wrote the rules down. Twenty years on, here they are: remembered, argued over, and written out properly.

This book is Dawood's game with its core rules: everything you need to play, and what the game on this site plays.

The page

Two players, a blue pen and a red one, and one sheet of paper. Everything drawn stays drawn. The dead are crossed out, never rubbed out, so a finished war is a page full of lines and crosses.

Setup

Take turns drawing bases (circles), one at a time, and jot each one full of soldier dots.
Positioning. Before anyone flicks, each side arranges its soldiers: anywhere inside its bases, or a little outside the walls 20 units, a dot and a bit. The first player arranges first, and the second gets to see it.

fig. 1 · a base, jotted full, one man stepping out

Nobody has to stay in, but it pays. A wall is as strong as the men inside it: a full base's wall eats most of a snipe and throws a lunger off his line. Men stepped outside don't hold it. And a lunger who lands among your soldiers gets shot.

A turn

one flick (a snipe or a lunge)+ one free send

Flicking

Pull back and let go, like flicking a pen stood on its tip. The harder the flick, the longer the line, and the wilder. A soft flick is short and sure.

fig. 2 · soft and hard

Page No. 2Date 26 · 9 · 26

Snipe

Your soldier stays put and the ink does the work. The line crosses out every enemy soldier it crosses. It goes straight through them.

Power loss. The paper fights back. Going through a base wall costs the line power, as much as the men inside make it; going through a soldier costs a little. The line thins and falls short. to test 3% of what's left at an empty ring up to 85% at a full base, 5% at a man; the wall at your back is free

fig. 3 · a snipe tapers through a wall and two men

Two with one bullet. Cross out two or more with one line and you flick again. It can chain, and power loss is what stops it: a line that pays for every wall and every man can't take many. to test

Lunge formerly “move”

Your soldier runs along his own ink, as far as a shot can go, and crosses out every enemy he runs through. He stands where the ink stops.

Walls shake him. Crossing a wall shakes his hand, as hard as the men inside make it; crossing a soldier shakes it a little. It's the snipe's power loss, paid in shake instead. to test about 1° at an empty ring up to 57° at a full base, 2.3° at a man
Lunge again. Each kill earns another lunge by the same soldier, a little shakier every time +0.05 rad, about 3°, a link. You can always stop.

fig. 4 · a kill, a shakier lunge, and one step too far

Where he lands decides. Inside an enemy base with enemy soldiers in it, they shoot him on the spot. In an empty enemy ring nothing happens: there's nobody left to shoot him (and if he crossed out the last man inside on his way in, there's nobody by the time he lands). Off the page, he's gone. Whoever he crossed out on the way stays crossed out.
Through a base. He may cut right through an enemy base, crossing out the soldiers inside, as long as he doesn't land in it. He pays shake at both walls and at every man he crosses: through a full base it's a wild gamble, through one shot down to a man or two it's cheap.

fig. 5 · in one wall, out the other

Page No. 3Date 26 · 9 · 26

Send

Once a turn, and free: send up to 5 soldiers walking from one of your bases to another, an empty ring included. Send before your last flick. to test

On the road for one turn. The convoy walks out in plain sight as the pen changes hands, a quick time-lapse between turns, and arrives at the start of your next turn. That leaves exactly one enemy turn in which it's on the open paper, and any line that crosses it then crosses them out. to test

fig. 6 · out, one enemy turn on the road, home

Why five: a big convoy on open paper is exactly what a two-with-one-bullet snipe is looking for, so the size of a send keeps itself in check. In the long war, convoys walk for several turns instead (see book 2).

Bases

An emptied base doesn't vanish. It stays on the page as an empty ring, and a send can man it again. Until then an enemy lunger can land in it safely.

fig. 7 · an empty ring, manned again

A wall is as strong as the men inside it. Snipes lose power through a wall and lungers shake, and how much depends on who's standing inside it when the line crosses. A full base's wall is thick; every man lost thins it; an empty ring is nearly paper. So shooting a base down makes it easier to hit, even within one line: men crossed out on the way in don't hold the far wall. to test a straight line from empty to full

fig. 8 · a full wall and a shot-down one

Last stand

When a side is down to its last 4, they've lost their comrades, and they fight like it: that side flicks twice a turn, with a steadier hand.

fig. 9 · the last four

Winning

Cross out every enemy soldier.

Page No. 4Date 26 · 9 · 26

Quick battle

Dawood's game: circles only, and the rules in this book. On the cover it's Classic; the long war is the other game there.

Classic

4 bases of 8 to test

Pages played on the sizes the cover used to offer (Quick, 3 of 8; Dawood's own 5 of 10; Custom) still open and replay.

There's more in the long war rules. Long war: bases with shapes, grooves and jolts, ink cover, bigger armies. Book 2 →

How you play

A separate choice from the size of the war:

pass one phone
against Dawood-bot
by a shared link planned
in real time, on two devices planned

Tactics

Nobody makes these rules up; they fall out of the ones above. Every one of them was a trick at the back of a classroom first.

Stay behind the wall. A full base's wall eats most of a snipe and throws a lunger off his line, and every man inside makes it tougher for the rest. Men standing out on the open paper are free.
Shoot the base down. Thin a base and its wall thins with it: the last few inside are far easier to reach than the first. And man a thinned base again before they finish it.
Look for a row. Two with one bullet: find enemy soldiers standing in a line and you flick again. So never leave yours in one.
Bait the lunge. One man stepped just outside your base looks like an easy kill. A lunger who runs through him and lands among the rest gets shot.
Catch the convoy. A send is on the open paper for exactly one of your turns. Five walking together is the row you were looking for. Send small, and send behind a base.
Soft to finish, hard to gamble. A soft flick is short and sure; save the hard, wild one for when a miss costs nothing.
Mind the last four. Get a side down to four and they flick twice, steadier. Take the last few in one turn if you can, or be ready for it.

Still to test

Every number in this book is a guess from the rules lab, where a bot played itself a few thousand times. None of them has been felt at a real table yet.

Garrisoned walls, from nearly paper when empty to 85% of a snipe and 57° of shake when full. In the lab a man inside is half as likely to be crossed out as one outside, and games run a third longer.
Two with one bullet, with nothing else holding it back. The longest turns (6 or 7 flicks on average, up to 15) come from lunge chains, not snipes.
How far a flick reaches: the same for a snipe and a lunge, from a fifth of the page to right across it, corner to corner, so the pull is one thing to learn. A small pull is a short line; the short lengths get most of the thumb's travel.
Lunge shake at men, and 3° a link. In the lab, lunges are still seven flicks in ten: they go after men outside, and a kill earns another.
How far outside the walls you may stand. Further out turned the game into lunges.
Sends: one enemy turn on the road, and the limit of 5.
Classic at 4 bases of 8: not measured in the lab yet. Quick, 3 of 8, ran about 22 turns with garrisoned walls; Dawood's 5 of 10 about 36.