The objective to the game of TAOEX is to capture a tower of 6 single opposing player’s tiles.
Naturally, players can win by eliminating all the other players or, by capturing an opponents tower that contains enough of their own tiles to liberate 6 or more.
Players control the board and the game with a mouse. Both left and right clicking, along with the scroll wheel, are required to play this game.
Also, within the board screen there is a game compass in the upper left corner of the screen. Clicking on any of the compass points will automatically change the view to that section of the board and the camera angle.
- Left click & hold to drag the perspective forward and back as well as left to right.
- Right click & hold to drag the perspective diagonally and change the camera angle from top view to board level.
- Center scroll wheel controls some pre-set camera angles by scrolling forward and back.
The tabbed help section does not represent all the game rules. What it does offer is some basic rules as they pertain to playing the game online. While it is always helpful to know all the rules before playing a game but, the rules to the game are incorporated into the building of the online version of TAOEX. The tabbed information is all you need to know before playing the game.
Enjoy.
Playing the Game
To start a new game simply click on the New Game button.
To maximize the game window, click on the double arrow icon in the bottom right hand corner of the screen.
By default, the game offers 3 players, Brown, Purple & Black. If you wanted to add or remove players simply click on the Player Count + or – in the upper left corner.
Once you have settled on the number of players you can then select the type of player to play the game. The choices are Human, Easy AI, Medium AI or Hard AI.
If you are playing V2 (version 2) you also have the option of turning path illumination off & on for ally and enemy tiles & towers.
Once you have made your choices click on Start Game in the lower left of the screen to begin a game of TAOEX.
When the game starts all the game Tiles (playing pieces) start off the board and will need to be placed. In the image the Human Player is Brown and when it is a human player’s turn you will notice that spinning, silver arrows, appear above the Brown player’s tiles that are eligible for placement.
When you select the game piece, or tile as they are called, all the eligible game spaces to place that tile on elevate slightly and are highlighted in red. Click on the game space you wish to place your selected tile. If you want to deselect a tile to select a different tile for placement, simply click someplace else on the board.
Once all the starting spaces have been filled it is time to start moving your tiles on to the board. Select a tile that you would like to move by clicking on it. When selected, the path that the tile may move becomes outlined in red and is slightly elevated. Select the desired game space you wish to move to and the tile moves to that position.
Within the game board there is a yellow, six-sided star known as The Way. The Way allows players to change the trajectory, or path, that a tile may move. The Way can not be jumped as all tiles that land on it must roll the dice and move to a new location along The Way. Like other movement options, The Way options also become outlined in red and slightly elevated. In the image the die rolled a “C” which offers the option to move up to 5 spaces on either side of the Tile that landed on The Way. The reason that there are only 2 spaces to the left of the Tile is because The Way is blocked by black spaces at the 6 star points that Tiles can not enter.
Within the 6 intersections of The Way there are 6 randomly placed Hook tiles. Hook tiles are special tiles (in yellow) that can add extra movement to a tower. Towers 6 high and less, can make a Hook move by moving a controlling colored tile first (natural player color) followed by moving the direction of the Hook. Hooking only works in connection to the control tiles. Towers that are a minimum of 5 high can make a Reverse Hook move by moving the Hook tile direction first followed by any captured tile’s direction. Reverse Hooking only works in connection to captured tiles.
When a player enters The Way via an intersection the action generates 4 arrows pointing along the paths of The Way. These arrows represent the choice of direction that the player has along The Way. As seen in the image, selecting one arrow, by clicking on it, opens the path in two directions along that plane. The die is rolled, and the player is given options along The Way to relocate their tile or tower.
During game play there are occasions when a player’s tiles might have to wait for a starting space to open. When a space opens, and a player has a tile off the board in that direction, the player has no move other than to place that tile during their turn. When this happens, arrows will appear above all the player’s tiles that are off the board and waiting to enter play.
As a player’s tiles move around the game board they will capture opponent’s tiles and in doing so, they will form towers. As players capture opponent tiles new directions for travel are gained and towers are created. Towers have the option of moving in the direction of any tile within it. But only 1 tile’s movement can be used.
In the image you will see that the Brown tower in the South East section of the board has many options for movement. The player has the option of moving his tower South East 3 by wrapping to the North West section, up to 3 spaces to capture the Black tile. Or, once again by wrapping, elect to move South 2 and wrap to the North East section. Finally, the player also has the option to move North West up to 3 spaces, bring his tile closer to The Way in a guarding move.
When a tower captures more than 6 tiles, or a smaller tower captures more than 1 Hook tile, the game displays the tower build screen. This screen allows players to select which tiles to retain in a tower by displaying a rotating tower. Click on a tile in the rotating tower to select it for retention and the selected tile moves to the right side of the screen. If he player wants to stop the tower from rotating all simply right click and hold to stop the rotation. Once the player has selected the 6 tiles that they wish to retain, the player clicks the Confirm button. Once clicked, the tower is moved back to the board in its original space, any discarded Hook tiles are returned to the board as are any liberated play tiles.
As previously stated, the way to win the game is by creating a tower of 6 tiles of 1 color. This can be done by either capturing 6, single opponent, tiles or, by capturing an opponent tower that contained 5 of your own tiles. In the image we see that a Brown controlled tower containing 5 captured Black tiles will win the game if the Brown player moved his tower South West 1 to capture its sixth Black tile.
When a player, human or AI, meets the victory conditions, the game exits the board screen and the victory screen displays. The victory screen shows the condition for the win and by which player, and defaults to the Points tab. The other tabs display as follows; number of captures, tower heights and count.
