Control

Control is a game between two players. The objective is to let your pieces control as much area as possible. You do it by moving your pieces, building new pieces and capturing the opponent’s pieces. The game is free here.

The Board and the Players

The game is played between two players, white and black. If you get to play white the initial position looks like the left below. If you play black it looks like the right.

The board is the big black square. The small white circle in the upper left corner is white’s starting piece, called a Pebble. The light red area around the piece is the area controlled by it. In the same way, black’s starting Pebble is in the bottom right corner and the area it controls is blue.

You can only see your own pieces and the areas they control. So in the initial position white cannot see black’s piece and vice versa.

Moving a piece

A Pebble can be moved to another position. To move it press the left mouse button over it. The Pebble will light up, and the area it can move to will light up, in red for white and in blue for black pieces

Drag the mouse to the place you want the Pebble to go. As you drag it a red ring will show where the piece will go if you release the mouse button:

Release the button and the piece has moved:

Move it again. The Pebble controls a circular area around itself.

You cannot move any piece outside the controlled (red) area. But the controlled area follows the piece, so by moving several times you can get a Pebble to move anywhere. Black pieces move in the same way.

Pieces may not collide. If you for example have three Pebbles the area that lights up when moving one of them will avoid the other pieces.

The Timer

White and black can move pieces without waiting for each other. So you don’t need to wait for your turn in order to make a move. But a timer will prevent you from moving too often. It is shown as a bar under the board (in white for the white player and in black for the black player).

At first the bar is as wide as the board. It will shrink and in a few seconds it will disappear. Before it has disappeared you cannot make a move or even grab a piece with the mouse. When it has disappeared

you can move again.

Building more pieces

You can build a piece by clicking (left button) on the place where you want to build it. That place must be on your controlled area and at a suitable distance (not too far and not too close) from another piece. Moving the mouse (without clicking) over such a place will show a red outline of the piece you can build there. When that outline is shown just click to build the piece.

At first you can only build one other kind of piece, a square. Position the mouse at a suitable distance from a Pebble without clicking. If your timer has expired a red square will be shown:

click to build it there:

Squares are stationary pieces, so they cannot be moved. And they control a very small area. The purpose of the squares is that through them you can build further Pebbles. Around each square is a patterned area, and this is where you can build Pebbles.

The patterned area continues in a ring around the square, but you can only build on the part of it you control. To build a Pebble you must first choose the kind of piece to build by clicking the outline of the Pebble to the left of the board:

The pieces to the left of the board are shown as outlines and are only there so that you can choose what type of piece to build. Your chosen piece will be outlined in red. If you want to choose another kind just click on it. In this example click on the circle. It will then switch to red. Move the mouse over the patterned area. A red circle will appear if you can build a Pebble there. Click to build it.

After clicking:

After a build the timer will take longer to expire. So you can make many moves with a Pebble during the time it takes to build a piece.

Maximum Number of Pieces

In this way you can build more pieces, both Pebbles and squares. A piece can only be built on a controlled area at a suitable distance from a controlled piece of the other kind. It cannot be built too close to another piece. Around the squares the patterned area will show where you can build more Pebbles. The only real purpose of the squares is to build more Pebbles.

You cannot have more than two squares on the board at the same time. Once you have two squares the possibility to choose square to the left of the board will disappear. But if one of your squares is captured by the opponent you can build another. You may build any number during a game, but you may not have more than two at the same time.

The Pebbles have another kind of limit. You may build seven new Pebbles, so with the initial Pebble you can have eight of them. And you may have all in play at the same time. But if a Pebble is captured you will not get another. When you have built seven Pebbles the possibility of choosing more Pebbles to build will disappear for the rest of the game.

On top of the board it is shown how many Pebbles you have left to build:

Initially there are seven Pebbles. You cannot click on these, they are just there to show you how many you have left to build.

Neutral Areas

An area that is controlled by both a white and a black piece is neutral and shown in grey. If a white and a black Pebble are close the situation will look like the following (left: from white’s perspective; right: from black’s perspective)

Both players can see the neutral area.

A piece cannot move into or be built on neutral area.

If an area is controlled by two white pieces and only one black piece it is controlled by white. In that case black can see the area because a black piece exerts some control over it, even though the combined force of the two white pieces exerts more control. Here is such a situation as seen from white (left) and from black (right)

The red area that black can see is controlled by both white Pebbles. White can now move one of the Pebbles down in that area. The result is that the area around the black Pebble will become neutral and looks like:

In this way the black Pebble has been trapped. It cannot move because it is not on a controlled area. White’s bottom Pebble is on a controlled area because both white Pebbles control it. So it can move. But it cannot move into neutral area and therefore not capture the black Pebble – yet!

Capturing Enemy Pieces

To capture an enemy piece it has to be on controlled area. So white can capture a black piece only if it is on an area controlled by white, and vice versa. Continuing the example, if white moves the other Pebbles down the situation becomes, as seen from white (left) and black (right):

Black’s Pebble becomes reddish to signify it is on an area controlled by white. Now white can capture it by simply moving one of the Pebbles there, just as a piece is captured in Chess. The captured piece disappears.

To the left is the situation again. To the right is shown what happens when white presses the mouse over the rightmost Pebble. The area it can go to will light up and also the black Pebble will light up to show it can be captured.

Black can prevent this only by moving other pieces close to the trapped piece. An area controlled by the same number of white and black pieces is neutral, and no one can move or capture a piece there. An area controlled by more white than black piece is controlled by white, and here white can move (and capture) pieces.

In the same way white pieces on areas controlled by black become bluish and can be captured by black.

Winning the Game

The game clock is in the top right corner. It counts down to zero. When it reaches zero the game is over and whoever controls most area wins.

In the top left corner the score is shown: how much more area you control. In the initial position both players control areas of the same size so the number will be 0 (zero) for both players. If white at some point controls 3 area units more than black then the number will read 3 for white and -3 for black. Negative number are shown in red.

An area unit is 1/64 of the board. Think of the board as a chessboard, a unit is then one square.

There is one other way to win. If your opponent does not control any pieces – ie all pieces are on neutral or your area – you have won.

You can of course resign at any time by pressing .

The game is drawn if both players control areas of the same size when the clock reaches zero, or if a position is reached where no player controls any pieces.

When the game is over both players get to see the entire board

Starting the Game

You need to be two players on separate computers. Both players start the game by clicking here. There is no single-player version of the game. If you want to check it out you can start it twice on the same computer to play against yourself.

If the game will not start a reason may be that your java is too old. If you know a little about java you can get the latest version for free at www.sun.com.

The computers must then connect through the Internet. One of the players should connect and the other listen for a connection.

So one of you should press .

And the other player should press .

The listening player cannot be on a different local net or behind too strong firewalls. If that is the case, open (or have your network admin open) port 8888 to your computer.

Connection

The player who pressed must supply the other player’s IP-number:

Fill in the IP-number in the white field and press return. If you do not know the IP-number, it is shown at the player who pressed :

When the connection has established the listening player should press :

and the game will start!

If you want to try out how the pieces move you can start the game twice on your computer, one listening and the other connecting, just type localhost instead of an IP-number. You will get to play both players (in different windows) against each other and can run both with the mouse.

Control and Controlite

Until now we have described a lightweight version of Control called Controlite. You choose to play Control or Controlite at the options screen:

At the options screen you can also vary game size and some other things – try it! Of course both players must choose the same.

Heavy Pieces

The difference between Control and Controlite is that in Control there are more kinds of pieces, the so called heavy pieces. They are more powerful than the Pebble.

To build heavy pieces you must first build a cross. You do that by moving a Pebble into a square:

If the move is possible the outline of a cross is shown above the square when you drag the Pebble there. Releasing it, the square is replaced by a cross. The Pebble disappears and cannot ever reappear.

A cross is stationary, just like the square. The area it controls is a bit bigger. It cannot be used to build more Pebbles. Its only function is to upgrade Pebbles to heavy pieces.

Upgrading

A Pebble to be upgraded must be on controlled area and a suitable distance from a cross, also on a controlled area.

To upgrade you first have to choose the kind of piece to upgrade to. There are three alternatives as shown to the left of the board. In the same way as you clicked on outlines in order to choose what to build, you click on one of them to choose what to upgrade to. The chosen one is shown in red.

The three alternatives are

a faster piece,

a stronger piece, and

a piece with longer range

Here you have chosen to the left. Move the mouse over the Pebble you want to upgrade. If an upgrade is possible, ie the Pebble is on controlled area and near a cross, an outline of the upgrade is shown over the Pebble. Click to make the upgrade.

In the same way as for squares you cannot have more than two pieces of the same kind at the same time. So if you already have two upgrades of kind that possibility will disappear (it will reappear if one of those upgrades are captured).

The Kinds of Heavy Pieces

This piece exerts double amount of control on its area. It looks like two Pebbles very close together.

Here is the same situation seen from white (left) and black (right):

The leftmost black Pebble is on the area controlled by white, since the white piece exerts double control. Therefore white can capture the Pebble. The area controlled by the white piece and both black Pebbles is neutral.

This piece controls a larger area. It looks as if it beams out its control!

But it moves no further than an ordinary Pebble.

This piece can move longer in one move. It looks as if it has wings.

But it controls no larger area so if it is to move far it must land on areas controlled by other pieces.

The piece is also faster in the following sense: After a move the timer will expire more quickly, allowing you to get in the next move faster.

Hills

Normally the board is flat. A variant of the game, which makes it more unpredictable, is to let the board contain hills. You set this at the options screen:

A hill is marked by concentric circles on the board:

Hills outside the control range of your pieces are not visible, so you need to explore the board to find them. To the left is an example of two hills near a Pebble.

A piece on a hill controls a larger area. So you should try to locate the hills and move your pieces there. To the left you see what happens if the Pebble moves onto a hill: its controlled area becomes bigger.

Hills come in different sizes and heights. The height of a hill is shown by the number of concentric circles. The higher a hill, the more area a piece on it will control.

The location of the hills and their sizes are determined randomly. They may lie close together or be evenly distributed. So this makes the game more unpredictable.

Other options

If you want to vary the game you can set other options. Note that both players must set them in precisely the same way.

Board shape

Choose to play on a square board or a round board.

Shape of areas

This determines the shape of the area that a piece controls, and the area where it may move. The choices are square, hexagonal, and round (default). If you have performance problems set this to square.

Relative board dimensions

Think of the board as an 8 by 8 chessboard. You can extend it independently along the width and height to up to 16 squares, to get a rectangular (or elliptic, if you chose a round board shape) board. This does not increase the area it occupies on the screen. The board is automatically scaled down. But it affects the relative size of the pieces and the areas they control. So a 16 by 16 board appears as large as an 8 by 8 board, but the pieces and areas are smaller.

Graphics

This determines how large the board will appear on your screen.

Game speed

This determines how fast the timer will expire after each move. The faster setting lets it expire more quickly, meaning that the next move may be done faster.

Game length

This is the duration of the game, in minutes, before the game clock expires and the game ends.

Pebbles

This is the number of Pebbles available to each player. Normally this is 8, for the one starting Pebble and 7 more waiting to be built. You can increase this number to get more waiting Pebbles. If you do this there is a limit on 8 Pebbles per player on the board at any time. So you can have at most 8 Pebbles, but if they are captured or upgraded you can build more, until the waiting Pebbles are exhausted.

Have Fun!

I retain the copyright but you are free to use this game for non profit purposes. If you find it entertaining or have suggestions I would appreciate hearing from you.