Pylos Copyright © 1993 Gigamic, S.A. All rights reserved. is an abstract strategy game designed for two players based on a concept by David G. Royffe, formerly known as Pyraos. The game board features a 4x4 grid where players can strategically place marbles. At the beginning of the game, one player is allocated 15 white marbles, and the other player receives 15 black marbles, each placed in their respective so-called reserves. The player possessing the white marbles initiates the first turn.
The primary objective is for a player to be the one to place the last marble on the pyramid formed by the arrangement of marbles, thereby securing victory.
The game progresses as players take turns executing the following moves:
If a player forms a horizontal 2x2 marble square of their own marbles during their turn, they have to take one or two of their own marbles, that do not support other marbles, back to their reserve.
In Pylos, creating a horizontal 2x2 square with marbles allows for the placement of a marble on top of it onto a higher level. That is important to mention, as the third option is exclusive to the player's free marbles on the board, which means, that they do not have others on top of them. In this scenario, the player preserves a marble from their reserve.
By creating one or more marble squares of the current player's color through any of these moves, the player can immediately retrieve either one or two free marbles of their color from the board back into their reserve, presenting another opportunity to save marbles.
A player must make a move whenever possible. The sole condition for victory is to place the final marble atop the pyramid. If a player is unable to make a move, the opposing player can utilize their remaining marbles to secure victory by placing the last marble.
This is a web application to play the game Pylos Copyright © 1993 Gigamic, S.A. All rights reserved.
This project was developed by Tobias Lang as a bachelor thesis for computer science, supervised by Oswin Aichholzer, at Graz University of Technology. The java server and the webapp are based on a project by Christian Kollmann.
The server is written in Java 17, using the Spring framework. The client is written in HTML and JavaScript, using jQuery. Compatibility was tested in Chromium and Mozilla Firefox running on Linux, Android and Windows. Nevertheless the application should be compatible with any browser like Microsoft Internet Explorer.
The AI of this game is based on an exhaustive evaluation of all possible game positions stored in a large data base. For each possible board its status (current player win, opponent player win, draw) is known, as well as as the minimum number of half moves needed to force a win from this board. A green even number shows in how many further half-moves the game can be won by taking this move (assuming optimal play of the opponent, otherwise you can win faster). A red odd number shows the maximum number of half-moves you can delay the victory of the opponent (again assuming optimal play of the opponent). A '-1' indicates a position where the current player can force a draw. So an even number shows a winning move, which guarantees a win for the current player (when continuing to play optimal) in at most this number of half-moves. An optimal winning move is a move which guarantees the shortest available sequence of half-moves till the player wins.
Click on a empty field, where you can place a ball to place it.
Click on a ball to move or remove it depending on the current turn.
Click on a selected piece a second time to deselect it.
Click and move your mouse in the canvas to with the 3d object to rotate it.