Game rules and variations
The game is played on a seven by seven board, as shown below:
There are two players. The first player has white stones and the second player has black stones. These stones are also called pieces or blobs in various documents, and of course the colors differ in various implementations. For the rest of this document, white is the human player and black the computer player, unless otherwise stated.
To accurately describe locations on the board I will use a coordinate system. (0,0) is the top-left corner. (6,6) is the lower right corner. The lower left corner is (0,6).
Each player gets two stones which are in opposite corners. The white stones are in (0,6) and (6,0) and the black stones in (0,0) and (6,6). The white player starts and can make one of two kinds of moves:
- a normal move of 1 step, horizontal, vertical or diagonal. The original stone stays where it is, and another stone is added.
- a jump move of 2 steps, horizontal, vertical or diagonal. The original stone is removed and put on another place.
If white moves a stone next to a black stone, all black stones next to this stone are turned white. This is the way to get many stones. The game has ended when all spots are taken by either black or with stones. When a player can not make a move his move passes and the other player can move again. One has won when one has the most stones at the end of the game.
Variations on ataxx
Hexxagon
Hexxagon has the same rules as ataxx, only it is played on a hexagonal board. This also means that there are just six boxes around one location, making acquiring pieces somewhat more difficult. A normal board has 5 boxes on one side, for a total of 61 boxes.
Blocks
Some implementations add blocks to the board: boxes where no pieces can be put. Blocks do not move, but the places where the blocks are can not be used by any piece. Most implementations put the blocks symmetrical around the center of the board.