This app was programmed and designed by Andrew Keller, who will be a first year graduate student in physics in fall quarter of 2009. The sound effects are notes from a valiha, which is a musical instrument from Madagascar. The photos used in the game were taken by Joe Ravesloot and used with his permission; derivative art was conceived by Andrew Keller.
There may be variants of the rules stated here, but the rules for this implementation of Fanorona are as follows.
Either White or Black goes first depending on the settings, but the default is for White to go first. A capture must be made if a capturing move is available. Otherwise, one piece may be moved into a vacant, adjacent spot allowed by the lines on the game board, and then the turn must end. For example, in the figure below, if it were White's turn, White could move any one of his/her pieces into a vacant spot denoted by an arrow. The two yellowish arrows will be explained below.
Captures are performed by moving a piece adjacent to or away from a contiguous group of stones of the opposite color. In doing so the captured stones are those that fall along the line of motion (and are contiguous with the stone that the capturing stone moved towards or away from). Suppose in the diagram above that it is Black's turn and White had moved the bottom-most piece to a location denoted by a yellowish arrow in the preceding turn. Then depending on which arrow, Black could either pull away from the white piece or move up against it to capture.
Consecutive captures by the same piece in one turn are allowed but not required. Please note that once a capture is made, all subsequent moves in a turn must be capturing moves, and only one particular piece may be moved per turn. Furthermore, the same location on the board cannot be visited more than once in a given turn, and a piece may not move in the same direction twice in a row. An example of a consecutive capture is shown below, where it is Black's turn and the starred pieces will be captured.
When a stone is moved away from one group but towards another group of oppositely colored stones, the player must choose which group of stones he/she wishes to capture, as only one group may be captured at a time.
The game ends when all pieces of a color are captured, or when a draw is declared by using the "Call Draw" button next to the "End Turn" button.
This app's operation is more or less self-explanatory, so the finer points will be explained in a Q/A format.
Q: How do I change from a human vs. human game to a human vs. CPU game, or vice versa?
A: To switch, just go back to the title screen by clicking the icon in the bottom left when the game board is visible.
Q: Why did the game not start with the pieces in their initial positions?
A: If you were in the middle of a game when you exited the program or switched between human vs. human and human vs. CPU games, your game will be retained so that it may be resumed where it was. If this is undesirable, simply start a new game by clicking the second icon at the bottom when the game board is visible.
Q: I tapped in the wrong spot and now my piece is not where I want it, but I have not yet ended the turn. Can I undo?
A: Yes, simply select another piece or tap the selected piece itself to revert the board to the state it was at the start of the turn. If you have ended the turn, just as in the real game, you cannot undo!
Q: Why does touching the selected piece after it has already been selected undo all of the moves?
A: This is done so that if there is only one piece remaining, there is still an undo option available.
Q: What is the difference between "Total games played" and "Total games played to completion" on the stats page?
A: Total games played counts games even if they are aborted by starting a new game, whereas total games played to completion only counts games ending in a win, loss, or draw.
Q: Can I make the game easier/more difficult in the human vs. CPU mode?
A: In the current version only one difficulty setting is supported. The computer is fairly good at the start and extremely poor in the end game. Addressing this will be a priority should future versions appear lucrative to the author (so tell your friends).
Q: Why does the computer always let me call it a draw?
A: The computer player in this version is not too intelligent. Improvements in this regard will go hand-in-hand with improvements to the artificial intelligence in general.
Q: How do I find out how many pieces I have captured already?
A: Tapping the black region just below the game board will cycle between telling you whose turn it is and how many pieces have been captured by whom.