A Primer on Game Mechanics

In this document we describe the game rules and how battles work from start to finish.

Rules Overview

• Last unit standing wins (may end in a draw).
• A unit standing on a pit or outside the ring of death will die.
• A unit may not share a tile with a wall or another unit (dead or alive).
• A unit that returns an illegal action will idle.
• A unit that fails to return an action will die.

Turns and Rounds

Turns and AP

Every unit receives 50 AP (action points) per round, and may accumulate up to 100 AP. These action points are used to perform actions in turn. A unit can perform as many legal actions on their turn as they wish. If they idle or try an illegal action, their turn ends.

Note: If a bot fails to return an action, it is killed.

Round order

The order of turns in a round is determined by who used the least AP last round (see below). On the first round and any time two units use the same amount of AP, a coinflip determines who goes first.

Map Features

Ring of death

The ring of death kills any unit standing on it or outside of it. The so-called death radius decrements by 1 every round.

Common features

A pit kills any unit standing on it.

A wall prevents units from standing on it or being pushed into it.

Advanced features

A pressure plate is an advanced mechanic used by some maps. We will discuss this in another guide.

Winning (last bot standing)

A battle is over when no more than one unit remains alive. If a single unit remains alive it is the winner.

If no units remain alive it is a draw (e.g. when the last 2 surviving units both die on the same step by the ring of death contracting).