Animal Gambit

Animal Gambit is an intellectual duel where animal cunning matters more than brute force. You and your opponent command squads of beasts, and every move resembles a chess gambit: you sacrifice a little to gain a decisive advantage. There is no randomness here — only cold calculation, multi‑move traps, and the ability to predict your rival’s actions.

What’s inside
Two battle modes — fight real people online or sharpen your skills against an advanced AI with multiple difficulty levels.
Random faction — before each match you receive a gold or silver army, so no game ever repeats.
Tactical setup — before combat, place your 16 pieces on your half of the board, choosing the optimal formation.
Living battlefield — every piece has its own personality, and trap cells plus special graphics create the tension of a real battle.
Simple controls — select a piece, see highlighted move options, and act. Mastering takes minutes; perfecting takes months.

Game Rules

Objective — win in one of three ways:
get your rabbit to the opposite edge of the board;
eliminate all enemy rabbits;
leave the opponent with no legal moves (all their pieces frozen or blocked).

Board — an 8×8 square. Four traps sit in the center: any piece that ends up on a trap without friendly support is immediately removed from the board.

Armies and piece strength
Each player has: 1 elephant, 1 camel, 2 horses, 2 dogs, 2 cats, and 8 rabbits.
Strength hierarchy (strongest to weakest): elephant → camel → horse → dog → cat → rabbit.

Initial setup
Players take turns placing all their pieces on the two rows closest to them. The gold player occupies rows 0–1, the silver player rows 6–7.

Turns and steps
Gold moves first. A turn consists of 1–4 steps. In one step, a piece moves to an adjacent empty square horizontally or vertically. Rabbits cannot move backward: for gold, “backward” means increasing the row number; for silver, decreasing it.

Push and pull
A stronger piece can push or pull a weaker enemy piece if it stands on an adjacent square.
Push (2 steps): first the weak enemy piece is shifted to an adjacent empty square, then yours takes its place.
Pull (2 steps): first your piece moves to an adjacent empty square, then the enemy piece moves into the vacated spot.
After a push, the same piece cannot immediately pull, and vice versa.

Freezing
If a piece is next to a stronger enemy piece and no friendly piece is adjacent, that piece is frozen and cannot move. However, the opponent can still push or pull it.

Traps
A piece standing on a trap cell without a neighboring friendly piece dies instantly.

Winning and losing
You win if your rabbit reaches the opponent’s last row.
You win if you destroy all enemy rabbits.
You win if the opponent cannot make any legal move.
You lose if you push or pull the opponent’s rabbit onto its last row and leave it there until the end of your turn.
Repeating the same position three times is forbidden; such a move is considered illegal.

Animal Gambit is a challenge to your intellect. Are you ready to think through every step, sacrifice pieces for position, and lure the enemy into traps? Prove that your gambit is stronger.