objective
Five gold anchor nodes hold the sector. Control three of them at the
end of any of your turns and the match is yours. If both sides run out of legal moves, the side with
more anchors wins; ties fall to total charge, then node count, then a draw.
claiming
Every node carries a charge of 1–4, drawn as notches on its ring.
Your support on a node is the summed charge of your nodes directly linked to it.
Claim a neutral node when support ≥ charge .
Capture a rival node when support ≥ charge + rival support .
Immediate recapture is mathematically impossible, so a capture is always a real gain of tempo.No legal move? Your turn is skipped automatically and the rival plays on.
the memory layer
Each move and each line the rival considered but rejected stamps a faint ghost calculation
into the board. Those strata never clear, so the finished constellation is a portrait of the tension
in the match. Export it as a PNG at any time.
debrief and exports
When a match ends the result panel adds a tactical debrief : the turning point, the
strongest capture, the corridor worked hardest and the anchor tally. Every line is re-derived from
the seed and the move log, so it says only what the rules can prove — and a replay of the same
match reads identically. Two exports sit beside each other: export png keeps the
artwork clean, export record writes a plain-text match record with the outcome, the
debrief and the codes that reproduce the sector. Both are ordinary local downloads.
sector Standard
When a match ends, compare Standard derives one deterministic reference line from
that seed, mode and rival signal at focused depth, with the same signal choosing both sides. It
places the outcomes, anchors, nodes and charge side by side without turning them into a score.
Activate watch Standard to open that line in the existing echo transport; leaving
it restores your finished result and focus. The reference stays in memory only and writes no storage.
match archive
The archive is off until you switch it on . Once on, finishing a match keeps its
replay code and a one-line outcome in this browser only — twenty matches at most, oldest first
out. From the panel you can watch a stored match back, copy its link or code, delete one entry or
clear them all; deleting asks twice. Nothing is uploaded and unfinished games are never kept.
rival signals
The rival is one search engine reading the board through one of five named, fixed
signals . A signal changes only how it weighs the position — anchors, reach,
captures, safety, threats — never what is legal. It is chosen for the next match and
then locked, which is what keeps an echo reproducible.
Blank the original rival, unchanged — balanced anchors and safety
Cartographer reach and connected expansion: many nodes, many options, close to everything
Usurper takes things: rates capturable rival material outright and accepts exposure
Warden holds what it has: anchors and safety above threats it cannot keep
Oracle reads the next move: immediate anchor threats above all else
modes
Classic is the original sector: hold three of five anchors.
Overload asks for four of five and changes nothing else —
the same claims, the same captures, the same skips, the same ply ceiling and the same fallback if
both sides run dry. Like the signal, the mode is locked for the whole of a match.
daily sector
One sector a day, the same one for everybody, derived entirely from the current
UTC date: seed DAILY-YYYY-MM-DD, rival depth focused , and a
mode and signal fixed by a hash of the date. There is no account, no leaderboard, no upload and no
streak — the date is read once, in this browser, and nothing about your result leaves it.
first contact
New here? First contact is a short guided sector: seven steps on one reserved
seed, in classic against the Blank signal at calm depth. It walks you
through claiming a neighbour, watching the rival answer on the same rule, reading a blocked node
in the ledger's own wording, and taking your first anchor. Start it from the button below or from
the intro gate — it adds no keyboard shortcut, and it never starts on its own.
Because the taught line has to be reproducible, the lesson asks for one named node at a time and
refuses every other move, including legal ones . That is the single place the lesson is
stricter than the game, and leaving it hands back an ordinary sector at your own next-match
settings. Nothing about a lesson is shared, exported, archived or remembered: there is one
lesson, no progress is kept, and no score.
controls
pointer / touch tap a node to claim it; hover to inspect
← ↑ → ↓ move the reticle to the nearest node in that direction
Enter / Space claim the reticled node
L cycle legal moves
P pause / resume
N / R new seed / replay current seed
C copy a challenge link for this sector
X open the echo protocol panel (links and replay codes)
A open the match archive (off until you switch it on)
, / . step an echo replay back / forward
E / Shift E export the artwork PNG / export the match record
M toggle sound
? this briefing
Esc close overlays
accessibility
The signal ledger is a complete non-canvas mirror of the board: one button per
node, labelled with charge, anchor status, owner and legality.
Turn changes, claims, captures, skips and results are announced through a polite live region.
Focus is always visible; nothing depends on colour alone (owners also differ by glyph and text).
prefers-reduced-motion is honoured automatically, and motion can be toggled by hand.Audio is off until you switch it on. Nothing plays on load.
echo protocol
A challenge link carries this sector's seed and rival depth in the address
fragment, so opening it anywhere prepares exactly this board at exactly this difficulty. A
replay code additionally carries your move sequence; the rival's replies are
recomputed from the rules rather than trusted, and a tampered code is refused outright. Open
the echo panel with X to copy either, or to paste a code and watch the match back.
difficulty
The rival searches the move tree; focused (two plies) is the default. Change it with the
selector below — the depth is locked for the whole of a match, so the change applies to the
next one. That is what makes a replay code reproducible. The mode and rival signal work the same
way: they are chosen here for the next match and never alter one in flight.
rival depth
calm — 1 ply
focused — 2 plies
ruthless — 3 plies
next match mode
classic — 3 of 5 anchors
overload — 4 of 5 anchors
next match rival signal
play the daily sector
run the guided sector
BLANK//ZERO release —