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Arborius: Game of Trees
Arborius is a dense, highly challenging, and deeply intellectual abstract strategy game for two players. Compose your ultimate Arborean hero by nesting units together, and building unique combos to dominate the fractal plane. Combine any tiles in any order to create a completely original army. Each collectible tile also snaps and stacks together, expanding the battlefield into three dimensions. The direction of a tile affects where it can move and attack. Players compete not only with 3d stacks of tiles but over abstractly connected spaces, created by moving pieces in and out of each other. Players alternate doing exactly one of the following. Every tile has the same Basic Actions:
-Move a stack of tiles -Attack -Unplay -Play
-Use an ability -Enter tiles -Exit tiles
The ability action enables tiles to chain multiple actions together in a turn.
Moving a stack:
Tiles can move forward:
Tiles can jump down.
Or step up exactly one.
Unplay:
Tiles can be unplayed, returning them to your deck
Play:
When played a tile must: - Face an ally - Not cover an enemy
Attack a tile below and directly in front. Tiles cannot attack up, but they can attack as far down as needed.
Enter a tile:
Enter the top tile directly in front.
Exit a tile:
Exit a tile from the top of the inside.
Win condition:
A player wins when their opponent is unable to make a move. This happens when all their tiles are either dead, or covered up by other player's tiles. Tiles are completely disabled while covered. Here blue has won by covering all of yellow's tiles.
Attacking:
When a tile attacks, its attack is equal to the height of the tallest stack of tiles inside it.
If a tile is empty, it has no attack damage.
For example the tallest stack here is 4 tiles, so the tile containing them has 4 attack.
When a tile is killed by an attack, it is removed from play. Tiles can never be returned from death.
Setup:
You will need:
- Two decks of tiles - A flat play surface Arborius is played over multiple small boards that come and go as tiles move in and out of each other in the abstract space. You do not need any physical boards for play. Each new board represents the space inside a given tile, and moving to and from that board represents moving in and out of that tile. Players start with only one tile in play. Moving tiles to and from the board efficiently is key. A player may not make any move that would separate the board into two unconnected groups of tiles. Tiles are connected if they are adjacent. Diagonals are considered adjacent. This means all the tiles on a "board" will be touching, so physical grid markings aren't necessary.
Basic starting positions:
Ability symbols:
Here is a list of symbols used to describe the abilities on the tiles.
Rotate ⟳
Descend ⮷
Play
Attack
Reorder ⤭
Unplay
Defend 🛡️
Ascend ⮳
Freeze ❄️
Exit
Enter
Stack ≡
Rotate ⟳ Rotate the tile 90 degrees in either direction. Tiles may not rotate on their own so rotation abilities are very strong.
Descend ⮷ Descend the top tile. When modified by the stack icon, descend any number >0 from the top, as long as at least one tile is left behind. Single stacks cannot descend, since they would not be able to leave behind a tile.
Play As the first icon: activates when this tile is played. In the rest of the ability: play a tile facing this tile.
Attack Attack the tile directly in front of this. If a tile has no attack damage, it may not attack.
Reorder ⤭ Take the top tile of the target stack and insert it somewhere into the stack. It may not be inserted back onto the top. When modified by the stack icon, insert any number of top tiles >0. Do not change the order of the top tiles relative to each other. Single stacks cannot be reordered, as the tile would remain on the top.
Unplay Remove this tile from the board, retuning it to your deck.
Defend 🛡️ May only appear as the first icon in an ability. This icon is unique because it may not be activated on your turn. It is the only way to activate an ability on an enemy turn. You may choose to activate it after the tile is attacked on your turn. If the attack destroys the tile, it may not activate.
Ascend ⮳ Ascend on top of a tile. When modified by the stack icon, ascend any number >0, as long the stack is going up by exactly one tile.
Freeze ❄️ Flip the tile, disabling it. Internal tiles may not act. The owner must use a turn to flip it back.
Exit Leaving from inside a tile.
Enter Entering from outside a tile.
Stack ≡ This is an ability modifier that forces the related icon to effect the whole stack.
Interpreting abilities:
Rotate ⟳
Descend ⮷
Play
Attack
Reorder ⤭
Unplay
Defend 🛡️
Ascend ⮳
Freeze ❄️
Exit
Enter
Stack ≡
Here are two example abilities:
Sorceress:
Mask of the Blasphemer:
Using the key, read the abilities from left to right:
Unplay
: Descend ⮷
2adj
|
Rotate ⟳
Stack ≡
: Attack
So the Sorceress would be: Unplay, then descend 2 adjacent tiles. (Diagonals are considered adjacent.) Mask of the Blasphemer is: Rotate the stack, then attack.
Unless other tiles are specifically referred to (for example, effecting an adjacent tile), the icon refers to the user of the ability.
If a tile triggers an effect on a friendly tile, and it has an ability that begins with the same effect, they may choose to 'chain' to that ability, activating them in sequence.
Important: In order to use an ability, the player must be able to complete the ability in its entirety.
In other words: If a tile's ability attacks 3 times, but there are only 2 tiles available to attack, the ability may not be activated at all. Reasoning: Some abilities have icons which are harmful to the user, as a cost for the rest of the ability. The player must use the whole ability to ensure those costs are paid.
In this example, with allied sorceress and horse. When the sorceress uses her ability, and descends the horse, it may chain its own ability. Further: if the horse is chained on the first descend out of two, finish the remaining descend after the horse is done using its ability. Since all abilities must be fully completed, the horse may not make a move that would stop the sorceress from using the second descend.
If the horse was an enemy, it could not interrupt the sorceress' turn to chain its ability.
This tile reorders and freezes itself in exchange for attacking 2 adjacent tiles. If it was able to skip the first part, it would be too strong.
This tile is able to enter play and then reorder itself before playing an additional tile. The reorder symbol restricts it from using the ability when played on the 'ground' (it must be played on top of another tile to reorder).
When chaining, no ability may be used more than once per turn, to prevent infinite loops.
Building abilities:
Combining and chaining abilities together is a core feature of Arborius. - If a tile is inside another tile, the outer tile may use the inner tile's ability as its own. - The inner tile must not be covered. - A tile may chain any of its abilities together through the rules above, as long as no internal tile's ability activates more than once. ie: if you have two internal tiles with the same ability, the outer tile may effectively use that ability twice (assuming they can establish a suitable chain). - If an enemy is internal, the outer tile can still use its ability as its own.
Example of play:
Only white's turns are shown in this example. White wants to use its circle to attack black's triangle. Unless an ability effects it, tiles may only attack directly in front of them, so the circle needs to be moved into position to attack. The whole process takes 5 turns, and uses only basic actions, no abilities.
Starting positions
First white unplays the circle
Then replays it facing towards black's triangle
Then the circle can ascend.
And attack down on the triangle.
Example of play:
This entire sequence is a single turn for red. Red uses the Sorceress' ability to chain into two other tiles, killing the enemy soldier.
Defending:
A defender must remove stacks of tiles. If they take x damage, they must remove x stacks, and place them at the bottom of the attacker's stack. If they have x or less stacks, the defender is destroyed and removed from play.
COMBINING TILE ABILITIES
Tiles can also move inside each other...
When a tile moves inside another tile, we start another separate board, which symbolizes the inside of the tile.
This additional board represents the "inside" of the tile, You still make only one move across all boards, rather than one move in each board. THE SMALLER TILES ARE MERELY ILLUSTRATIVE: Arborius only has one size of tile, notice that the smaller tiles are in the same formation as the corresponding board, they are representing the tiles being contained in the larger tile.
A tile may use any of the abilities from its interior as its own.
Equipping your tiles with internal structures makes them more powerful.
Enemy tiles can enter your own, and attack your internal tiles directly.
The physical placement of the boards relative to each other is irrelevant, only the tiles' positions inside each individual board matter. There are no limits on the depth of these combinations. Tiles may be inside tiles inside tiles inside tiles etc... If a tile has pieces inside, and gets covered by another, the outer, and inner tiles are all completely disabled, and nothing can happen on the internal board until it is uncovered.
Note:
A player may not make a move that would separate the board into two non-contiguous groups of tiles. To distinguish a new "board", just put the tiles more than one tile away from the others. Tiles can't be away from each other and still be on the same board.