Pocket Saucers

Pocket Saucers is the ancient strategy game of Morris, performed by flying saucers, on a planet you've never heard of, with an audience of small cheering aliens. We can explain. This game pre-dates chess by a thousand years. It was found scratched into Roman temple steps and the decks of Viking ships. Now: a small desert planet, a low orange sun, two players, and a row-of-three pile-up that goes ZAP when it lines up. The aliens love that part. THE GAMES • 3 Saucers: the warm-up. Three pieces each, first row of three wins, whole match in under a minute. The ancients called it Three Men's Morris. • 6 Saucers: six pieces each. A row of three captures one of your opponent's. Reduce them below three to win. Known in antiquity as Six Men's Morris. • 9 Saucers: the big one. Nine pieces. Captures. The iconic "flying" rule: when you're down to three saucers, you can hop to any open spot, anywhere on the board. Based on the venerable Nine Men's Morris. THE PLAYFIELD • Cel-shaded saucers with under-glow, drawn in custom Metal shaders. Yes, they have little portholes. • Procedurally-generated alien desert under every match. No two look exactly the same, not because we're showing off but because procedurally-generated alien desert was easier than drawing a hundred backdrops. • Cinematic capture beams that lift your opponent's piece off the board and beam it skyward. Mill-formation lightning. A camera that knows when to zoom in. • An end-of-game crowd of aliens that pour onto the board, hop around, and let off fireworks. They are very excited. THE OPPONENT • Adjustable AI: Easy, Medium, Hard. The harder settings know everything about Morris theory. The easier settings know what they're supposed to do but choose chaos instead. • Scripted tutorials for every variant. Three minutes each. The aliens demonstrate; you watch; then you take over. HOUSE RULES • Toggle capture from mill, block immediate mill re-form, or disable the flying rule. Defaults match standard tournament play, which is a fancy way of saying "however your grandmother taught you was probably right." ALSO • No ads. No tracking. No analytics. Plays entirely offline because the cheering aliens have no cellular plan. • Native iPhone and Apple TV apps. If you've played Nine Men's Morris before, welcome back. The aliens have been waiting. If you haven't, you're about to learn one of the oldest strategy games still played, in a new home: a small planet on the far edge of somewhere, where the dirt is rust-colored and the audience never leaves.