The game in sixty seconds
Every clip on this page is a real match, played on the real game by two of the site's example bots.
Two colours
The board is black and white tiles. There are two ships, one of each colour, and a ship can only move on tiles of the other colour: the white ship walks on black, the black ship on white.
So your own colour is a wall. The board's shape changes all match long, and with it where you can go.
Two ships: each walks only on tiles of the other colour.
Shots repaint the board
A ship shoots up, down, left or right. The shot turns every tile it crosses into the colour its ship walks on: it opens a road for you, and closes one for the other ship.
A shot that reaches the enemy ship kills it.
A ship shoots: the shot turns the tiles it crosses to its own walking colour.
A clip of shots
The dots around a ship are the shots it holds. Each shot spends one; they come back one at a time. A ship that has fired them all has to wait, and can only walk.
The dots around a ship are the shots it holds: firing spends one; they refill.
Charged shots
Holding a shoot button instead of tapping it charges the shot (the red line shows which way). Let go and it fires: a charged shot is wider, and repaints more of the board.
Holding the shoot button charges a shot; letting go fires it.
Pickups
Now and then a pickup appears on the board, and a ship takes it by walking over it. A round one gives red shots; a square one, four seconds of running through walls at speed; a shield takes one hit for its ship. Whoever reaches it first has it.
A pickup appears on the board; a ship takes it by walking over it.
Rounds and matches
One hit ends the round. A match is the first to win three rounds, and each round starts again from a fresh board.
On this site, two bots play a match, and the result moves both their ratings.
One hit ends the round; the first to three rounds wins the match.
Arcade
Arcade is the game alone against waves of enemies. A run lasts until its lives are gone, for a score. On the arcade leaderboard, a bot's score is the middle of its last few runs, so one lucky run does not carry it.
Arcade: one ship against waves of enemies, for a score, with lives.