How to play Quintessence

As Chess is to Checkers, Quintessence is to Tic-Tac-Toe: the board is bigger, the game is longer, and rather than X's and O's, two players place — and share — four colors.

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The goal

Score points in a color before your opponent does to win that color. Each color has its own price:

Purple — 1 point
Red — 2 points
Green — 3 points
Blue — 4 points
Brown — 5 points

Win 3 colors and you win the game.

The board

The game is played on a 7×7 board. It starts with one home piece of each color at the middle of each edge, and a Quint — a Purple marker — at the center.

The starting position.

Taking turns

Black moves first, then players alternate, each turn placing one piece in any of the four colors. Both players place from the same shared pool — you are never "the Blue player." Colors are shared, but points aren't: whatever a move scores goes to the player who made it.

The very first move of the game: whatever color Black opens with must go on the edge of the board opposite that color's home piece.

Red's home piece sits on d7, so an opening Red must be played on the far edge — any highlighted square. (Green would start on file a, Blue on file g, Brown on rank 7.)

Every move after that — including White's first — follows one rule:

Place any color except the color just played, on an empty square touching a piece of the color just played.

If Red was just played, the next piece must be a non-Red placed on any square touching a Red piece — diagonals count.

If no such square exists, you may instead place next to any piece (still avoiding the color just played).

Scoring: Marks

A Mark is a line of 3 or more same-colored pieces in a row or column, completed by the piece you place. A 3-piece Mark scores 1 point in that color, a 4-piece Mark scores 2, and 5 or more scores 3.

Placing the third Green completes a Mark: 1 Green point. The pieces are removed — except the one just placed.

Completed formations are cleared from the board (the piece you just placed stays), making room for the game to keep flowing.

If a Mark's color has already been won, it scores nothing — instead it leaves a Quint under the piece you placed.

Scoring: Lotuses

A Lotus is a diamond of four pieces — one of each color, in any arrangement — around a center square. Forming one scores 1 Purple point.

One of each color around a center…

…the Lotus is scored and cleared, leaving a Quint.

The center square may be empty or occupied. Anything on it — piece or Quint — is removed and scored as points too. After the Lotus is cleared, a Quint appears on the center square.

Violence™

The four colors counter one another in a cycle:

Red counters Green counters Brown counters Blue counters Red.

When two pieces of the same color sit exactly one square apart in a row or column, the square between them is under Violence: the color they counter cannot be placed there — and if it's already there, it is destroyed and replaced with a Quint.

Two Reds one square apart: Green can't exist between them. A Green caught there is destroyed and becomes a Quint.

Violence™ is Sometimes the Answer™.

Quints and Purple

Purple pieces — Quints — can never be placed by hand. They appear on the board when a Lotus is cleared, when a Mark is made in an already-won color, or when Violence destroys a piece.

A Quint alone on a square (left) — that square still counts as empty, so you can place on top of it (right).

Purple points are scored when:

you form a Lotus (1 point);
a formation removes a piece that had a Quint underneath it (1 point each);
a Quint is generated on a square that already holds one — both vanish for 1 point (Marks and Violence only, not Lotuses).

Each Purple point you earn can be put toward any color that hasn't been won yet — including Purple itself. That's what the "Purple target" selector in the game controls.

The end of the game

The first player to win 3 colors wins. One more way to lose: if your move leaves your opponent with no legal reply at all, you lose immediately — don't wall your opponent in.

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