Paper Grid

Introduction

Paper Grid is a game created by my brother and I as a means to play something as intricate as Chess with only pencil and paper. It needed lots of strategy and multiple pieces, but pieces could never be moved since we didn't want to have to erase. Paper Grid is the resulting game. I had forgotten about this game for years until one day I saw my brother's notes on the game, and then set out to write this Java program. I have since revamped the program to it's current, full-featured version.

Controls

Starting a Game

You start a new game by selecting "New Game..." from the "Game" menu, then select which map to play, or "Random" to choose a map for you, or "Generate" to create a new map using the frequencies set in the Options dialog.

Network Games

To play a game over the network, select "Net Game..." from the "Game" menu, and then you're presented with the network side panel where you can see all peers on your local network. You can chat with them on the Chat tab, host a game on the Host tab, or click a player and join his or her game on the Join tab.

When hosting a game, the host selects the map, the port to play on, and whether to go first or second. You may also optionally set a password. When joining you may also manually enter any IP in the world, provided the path through NATs and routers is open.

Next to the player's name is a state indicator. "( )" is waiting in the lobby, "(H)" is hosting waiting for connections, and "(P)" is currently playing. To exit the network game mode click on the X icon next to the player name, or select "New Game" from the Game menu.

In-Game Controls

In game play, you place a piece by clicking on the type in the toolbar, by selecting it from the menu, or by typing 0 to 9 or '-' (or arrow keys for singles), then click in any legal location. The status line at the top will indicate whose turn it is and which piece is selected, as well as indicating how much power each player has available to place pieces with.

Options

From the Options menu you may...

• toggle display of influence paths and scrambler influece,
• change which set of graphics and sounds is used by selecting a theme in the "Themes" sub-menu, and
• enable or disable sounds and music.

• disable the normal "power doubling" mode in favor of just 4 units of power per power plan,
• set the frequency of blocks, as a percent of available tiles, for generated maps, and
• set the frequency of power plugs, again as a percent of available tiles, for generated maps.

Rules

You can only play a piece if you have enough power to support it and you have influence where you wish to place it. Directional pieces provide influence where they point. Bombs destroy neighboring enemy peices. Power plants provide power. There are other pieces as well as parts of the map. You may always "sacrifice" any of your own pieces if you want to free up some power (or for other strategic reasons, or if you just have no other valid move). Te only way to win is to destroy the enemy flag or force your opponent to sacrifice his own flag. You cannot skip your turn, thus if destroying your own flag is the only available move, then you must lose.

The pieces and map items are as follows:

None - Regions off the map.

Empty - An empty tile space. You may build here if you have influence on this tile.

Block - Indestructable and gets in your way.

Plug - Location where you can build a power plant. Power plants can only be build on a plug or next to another of your power plants. Plugs in the middle of the map act as blocks to anything other than a power plant, but corner plugs allow any kind of piece.

Rubble - Remains of destroyed pieces. If you have influence on it, you can ignite it to destroy neighboring pieces. Influence will extend across consecutive tiles of rubble and then end. You cannot ignite unless it will destroy something.

Flag - Your home base. Don't lose it, destroy the opponent's! It acts like an East-West double for influence.

Single - Gives influence in one direction. Costs 1.

Double - Gives influence in two directions. Costs 2.

Quad - Gives influence in all four directions. Costs 4.

Scrambler - Any object touched by its influence becomes disabled. It's influece will block the path of influence from other pieces. Costs 4.

Bomb - Destroys neighboring enemy pieces. Bombs do not destroy each other. Any enemy pieces built next to a bomb in the future will also be immediately destroyed. Costs 2.

Power Plant - Produces power. Costs nothing to build.

• Power plants can only be built on a plug or next to another of your power plants.
• You get 2 power for a single plant, and you double the output of a cluster of plants with each additional plant. (So you get 2^n power from a cluster where n is the number of connected power plants.)
• Disabling a power plant will reduce n but not break the clump.
• Destroying the plant, however, will break the clump and significantly reduces power.
• In the options screen, you may choose to have all power plants produce 4 rather than use the doubling rule.

Misc rules:

• A scrambler can block another scrambler. The one built second deactivates the one built previoiusly.
• A scrambler can block the effectiveness of a bomb. Bombs only go off when a piece is newly placed, so destroying the scrambler won't let the bomb blow up existing pieces.
• When a piece is destroyed or sacrificed, it stops using up the power it took, so you can reuse it elsewhere.
• If you no longer have enough power to support your pieces, the status screen will indicate a negative power and you will be asked to sacrifice pieces until you have zero or more power before the game will continue.

Strategy

Path to Victory - There are two paths to victory: Directly destroy the opponent's flag or control enough of the open space to force your opponent to sacrifice his/her flag before you have to sacrifice yours. There is no such thing as a tie or cat's game. On your turn you have to do something, even if it is sacrificing an important piece, a power plant, or your flag.

Territory Victory - If the game reaches an impass so that neither you nor your opponent can destroy the other's flag (all paths are blocked somehow), then the game comes down to who has the most moves left. Try to control more than half of the tiles on the map. Move across to the opponent's side early and keep the traffic jams on that side, so you end up with lots of free space back home. Once the traffic jam sets in, be smart about what moves you make and where you place your pieces. Usually you want to build only Quads and power plants to keep yourself able to use up 100% of the free space. Watch out for placement of pieces on the border that would allow the opponent to ignite rubble to hit you. If you can destroy any of your opponent's pieces in this way, you steal moves from him/her so that your victory is more likely.

Direct Victory - The most direct method is to march over and place a bomb right next to the opponent's flag. However, this isn't the only way to destroy it. If you can build a pile of rubble all the way back to the flag, you can ignite it to win. So watch out yourself. Try to keep blank tiles between your flag and any mass of pieces.

Scramblers - Scramblers can be a very powerful tool. They can be used to deactivate opponents pieces to stop him or her from some damaging step, they can be used as a shield to keep enemy influence away from your home base, they can be used to partition off parts of the map to control more territory, and they can even be used to deactivate enemy power plants from far away. The influence from scramblers can cross over other scrambler influence, which is the only way to affect anything past a scrambler shield. on some maps you can place a scrambler so that the side that would be exposed to enemy bombs is protected by an indestructable block. Be careful to not trap your pieces on the wrong side of a scrambler, because then you'll just have to sacrifice it yourself.

Alternate Attack - Power Plants - Rather than directly attacking your opponent's flag, it may work better to attack their power production capabilities. If you can limit the available power the opponent has, he or she will have to advance more slowly. Ideally you would destroy enough power plants to force the opponent to sacrifice some of their pieces. You can potentially bring an opponent to his or her knees by destroying all their power plants so they have to sacrifice all their pieces. When attacking power plants, try to attack the middle of clusters, since separating clusters into smaller clusters destroys the exponential power growth and so has a huge effect. You may not even have to systematically take out each plant one by one. You can also try to block off avenues for the opponent to expand to new power plug regions.

Name of the game - Speed vs. Power vs. Flexibility - The intricate nature of the game comes from the choices players make in balancing speed, available power (the ability to continue an attack without pausing), and flexibility. Fast attacks using Singles can be quite effective if done right, but if you run out of power just before placing your winning bomb, you'll be in a tight spot. You may choose to build up a large supply of power before attacking, so that once your strategy is revealed to your opponent you do not have to pause to build more energy. Using more expensive pieces like Quads and Scramblers gives much more flexibility, so you can squeeze around better in the future and access more of the map more quickly, but you have to watch more closely your energy supply. Finding the right balance for each situation is the trick of the game, and there is a wide variance of choices, providing many possible game outcomes.

Credits

Legal

Paper Grid is, currently, freeware. You are free to use and distribute this software without any warranty expressed or implied, including merchantability or suitability for a purpose. Paper Grid is not open source, and you are not authorized to distribute the source code or to disassemble the binaries without prior consent from the author. All the original artwork and sound files are the property of Everett Morse and may not be reused in a commercial product without prior consent.

The sound files that are not original, but are modifications based on prior work are: Media/Bomb.wav, Media/Burnt.wav, Media/Ignite.wav, Media/NetMyTurn.wav, Media/PlacePower.wav, and Media/space/PlacePiece.wav.

Copyright (c) 2004-2008 Everett Morse