Duorail

In this Death Match, build out your own road without making either your or your opponent's road impossible.

Designer(s): jkittykitkat	Match Type: DM (for 2 players)
Featured in: Community Hosted Genius Game, DM Colosseum 2, Community Hosted Genius Game 2, Community Hosted Genius Game 3
Awards: Best Strategy DM 2020

Death Match 10: Duorail another show variant... huh?

In Duorail, your aim is to create a path longer than your opponent. The death match uses colored standard Monorail tiles on a 9x9 board.

You will alternate placing down Monorail tiles of your own color onto the board (see Notation). The starting player will be determined by the DMO at the start of the game. Since this was an auto-DM, the DMO will be Danny, for that was the otherwise tiebreak for determining EC. The starting player will be blue, and the second player will be red.

So what is a path?

A path is something that uses all the pieces of your color on the board and as many pieces of L or | that can be rotated to form a closed loop with the white. The goal of the game is to create the longest path or calling when it is impossible.

These are some examples to clarify paths. Given that the top left exists on the board, the top right is an example of a valid path for blue. However, the bottom two are not valid examples of a path. For the bottom-left one, the white directions do not form a closed loop, and for the bottom-right one, a tile of the opposite (as in your opponent's) color is used in your path (this assumes the case if there were a red tile on B3).

This, as stated before, would be invalid because it does not go through all placed tiles at the beginning.

These are valid paths for the given position above.

During your turn, you have one of three options. You may either place a tile, call impossible, or have no action.

For placing a tile, as stated before, you place one tile of your own color (L or an |) onto an empty square on the board. These pieces may be rotated. You may not place over an already-placed piece. You may also place a purple tile.

The purple tiles are a special tile. Throughout the game, only two purple tiles that are | can be placed in a shared pool option. That means one person could place both purple tiles, and the other person would not be able to place one. Purple tiles are tiles that must go through both paths.

Placement notation:

When placing a piece down, any understandable notation works. For example, stating A2 UR is a valid placement [show board with an A2 facing UR]. Should a submission be unclear or invalid, I will state it then. I will not stop the clock for this. That is, if you run out of time before you can change it, you will go into your time bank.

If you call impossible, it means that you believe that it is impossible to form a path for a certain color. Do this in the form: “Impossible for [insert color].” Should one player call impossible, the board state is stopped. The other player has 3 minutes to prove that there can exist a path for the color challenged. You may use your time banks here, but if you run out of time, it will be considered your loss. Should the player who was challenged on not have a valid solution, the person who challenged wins. Should the player challenged on have a valid solution, the challenged player wins.

Impossible notation:

For this notation, you may provide a list of placements, a picture, or a series of ULDRs (or anything reasonable, it's best to check with me beforehand to see if I understand your notation).

The final action you may have is no action. Should you do no action, you do not place anything. It is your opponent’s turn, and they may do any of the options. However, if they also do no action on the turn after you did no action, it will go into the Endgame phase.

Endgame Phase:

In the Endgame Phase, both players have 3 minutes to post a path that goes through all of his/her tiles. You may not use time banks here. Should one player submit a valid path and the other one not, then the player who has a valid path wins. If both players run out of time before having a valid path, they will both receive 1 more minute. If both players do not post a valid path then, the winner will be the DMO. Should both players post a valid path, whoever has the longer path (the one that goes through the most tiles) wins. Should this be a tie, the person who placed the last piece wins.

Alternatively, should instead every square on the board be filled without a challenge or reaching Endgame Phase, whoever has the longest path wins. Should this be a tie, the person who placed the last piece loses. Should there exist no such path, the DMO wins.

Timing:

The time controls will be 1 minute per turn after the board update with 3 1 minute time banks. You will receive a 30 second warning and a 5 second countdown (Warning times are subject to change should both players agree.) Should you run over time, you will automatically use a timebank and get 1 more minute (this will be stated). If you run out of time banks and you still haven't placed anything down, it will be considered as no action.

DUORAIL

Design a longer track than your opponent, but don't let them complain that you're sabotaging them.

This game first appeared in Community Hosted Genius Game as Death Match 10, as part of jkittykitkat's episode. The inspiration for this game seems to be Monorail (The Genius: Black Garnet, Death Match 10).

GAME RULES

⚙️ Setup and terminology

The game takes place on a 9×9 board. The board has a coordinate system, where the rows are labeled A-I and the columns numbered 1-9.

Throughout the game, players will place pieces to fill in the cells. A piece has a color and a path.

There are three colors: two player colors and one common color. There are two kinds of paths: straight, connecting two opposite sides, and bend, connecting two adjacent sides. However, the common color pieces are only available in the straight kind. Pieces can be rotated in 90-degree increments; therefore, the following are all the possible pieces. The first two rows are the player pieces; the last row is the common pieces; in here, the player colors are red and blue, and the common color is green.

A track for a player is a loop through some cells on the board, going between adjacent cells through the sides, without crossing itself or otherwise using any cell more than once. All pieces belonging to that player and the common pieces must be part of the track, and the track must match the paths on those pieces (go straight or turn, with the appropriate exits). The track may not pass any of the opposing pieces.

The following is a reduced board (only 5×5) to serve as an example. One possible track for red is given below; it passes through all red pieces and the common green pieces in the correct orientations, and misses all blue pieces.

🧠 On your move

Players alternate turns, starting from the starting player. On your turn, you have four possible move options.

- Place a piece of your color. Place a piece of your color on any empty cell of the board. The piece may be of any kind and in any orientation; the only restriction is that it is on an empty cell, not on existing pieces.

- Place a common piece. The rules are the same as above, except here you place a common piece. As stated in the setup, common pieces only appear in the straight orientation, so you may not place a common piece that is a bend. In addition, there are only two common pieces in total. If both of them have been placed on the board, neither player can take this action any more. (Note that it doesn't matter who places the common pieces; it's possible both players get to place one, or one player places two and the other doesn't get to place any.)

- Challenge the opponent. You are challenging that the opponent has made it impossible to complete a track of some color. To challenge, declare which color you think it's impossible to complete a track of. Challenging marks the end of the game; more rules are in the "Challenge phase" subsection below.

- Pass. Do nothing for the turn. If both players pass in succession, the game moves to an endgame phase where each player will try to construct a longer track. Both players passing marks the end of the game; more rules are in the "Endgame phase" subsection below.

🔍 Challenge phase

If you think there is no longer a possible track for one color, you may take the challenge action, stating which color you think is impossible.

If you are challenged for a color, your job is to construct any legal track of that color. The rules for a track are defined in the setup; in short, you need to make a loop of cells that passes through all pieces of that color, as well as all the common pieces, while avoiding all pieces of the opposing color. If you are able to construct one such track, you win; if you cannot, your opponent (the challenger) wins.

🔍 Endgame phase

If both players pass in succession, no longer wanting to play any piece on the board, the game reaches the endgame phase where both players try to construct the longer track.

In the endgame phase, your job is to construct a track of your player color, trying to get the track as long as possible. Both players will simultaneously do so.

Once both players have a track, their lengths are compared; if a player is unable to construct a track, their length is 0. The player that has the longer track wins; in case of a tie, the player that placed the last piece on the board wins.

💎 Winning

You win from the challenge phase if you are on the correct side of the challenge: either you challenge the opponent and they are unable to construct a track, or you are challenged but able to construct a track.

You win from the endgame phase if you have a longer track than the opponent; this includes you managing to construct a track and your opponent unable to. If both players have equally long tracks, the winner is the player that placed the last piece.

ADMINISTRATION

🏷️ Writing your move

Your move must specify the action you take. In case of placing a piece, you need to also state the position you're placing your piece on, as well as its orientation. The orientation can be simply written as the two exits; for example, "LR" (for left-right) for a horizontal straight piece. In case of challenging, you need to state which color you're challenging; it's impossible to challenge both colors.

In the challenge phase and endgame phase, you need to construct a track. One suggestion is to use an image editor. You can also use text, although it might be pretty difficult. A text form of the track might be, state any one cell of your track, and then use UDLR to move to adjacent cells in order to draw out your track. In case you're using text form, the game host will draw out your track for you as an image, and you have the option to confirm it or change it (in case you are mistaken).

👁️ Available information

There is no hidden information. All information is public. You should make your moves in the public game room, except for the track construction; you can (and might want to, in case of endgame phase) use your private submissions channel to construct your track.

After each move, the current board will be posted.

⌛ Timing

You have the standard time controls. You have 1 minute per move, plus a time bank of 5 minutes.

In the challenge phase and the endgame phase, you have 5 minutes to construct your track; however, you cannot use your time bank. Running out of time means you fail constructing a track.

CLARIFICATIONS

📌 Examples

Taking the example board given in the setup, a possible track for Blue is the following. If this was the endgame phase and Red submitted the example track above, Red would have a track of length 16 and Blue 18, for a Blue win. Red has missed a longer track of length 18; if Red had found it, the lengths would be tied, and the winner would be the player that placed the last piece.

Duorail

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