# Iagno Manual

## Introduction

### What is Iagno?

Iagno is a computer version of the game Reversi, more popularly called Othello. Iagno is a two player strategy game similar to Go. The board is 8-by-8 with tiles that are black on one side and white on the other side. The object of Iagno is to flip as many of your opponent's tiles to your colour as possible without your opponent flipping your tiles. This is done by trapping your opponent's tiles between two tiles of your own colour.

Iagno also features multiplayer support with two human players in hotseat or network mode.

To run Iagno, select Iagno from the Games submenu of the Main Menu, or type `iagno` on the command line.

### Why is Othello called Iagno?

You're probably wondering why this game is called Iagno instead of Othello or even gnothello. The answer is complicated, and involves things like trademarks and lawyers and whatnot. Instead of leaving it at that, I'll tell you a long and complicated lie about the origin of the name Iagno.

On a stormy night, like those depicted so much in England, a lonely programmer was sitting in front of his computer screen. Ian had finished his masterpiece in gaming. It was a fully interactive game of Othello and he decided to play a pun with the name and called it gnothello for the game was written using GNOME.

Later his buddies came over and like all programmers he showed off his masterpiece. They all laughed in his face and told Ian that his game was worthless and a pitiful attempt to be a true hacker. After Ian kicked them out he decided to rename his program Iago

Iago is Othello's nemesis in the play Othello by William Shakespeare.

for the evil which had manifested itself due to his game. Yet it still didn't sound right. All GNOME programs have some part of GNOME in it, Ian thought. After much thought he decided on the name we have come to cherish, Iagno.

## Playing Iagno

The board starts with four tiles arranged in a box on the middle of the board. The tiles have the same colour at each corner, as shown in start-shot.

### Starting Position

Screenshot of the starting position.

Black goes first and places a tile on the board such that it traps white's tiles between two of black's tiles. When black places a tile on the board all of white's tiles between black's newly placed tile and another black tile, in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row, are flipped over and become black, as shown in first-shot.

### First Move

Screenshot of the first move.

When there is tile trapped between two tiles, of an identical colour in the same row, the player captures tiles until another tile of the player's colour is encountered, as shown in block-shot. The player can only take tiles that are a direct result of the placing a tile on the board. Once a tile is placed on the board the player cannot remove it and place the tile somewhere else. If a player cannot move they forfeit their turn. The game ends when it is no longer possible for either player to move.

### White cannot capture the black tile in the centre of the middle column because there are white tiles blocking the ends of that column. If it were black's turn instead, black could place a tile at the top of the column but would only flip the first of the two white tiles.

Screenshot of black blocking.

## Game Settings

### Player Colour and Difficulty

When you start Iagno the human player plays black and the computer player plays white with the first level of difficulty. Using the Game tab in the Preferences dialogue you can set the type of player for each colour. Human is of course you, level one is the easiest computer player and level three is the hardest. You can set both to human to play against a friend or set both to computer to watch the computer play itself.

### Quick Moves Option

This option is in the Settings menu. Then go to the Preferences submenu in the Game tab and it is initially off. When enabled this option makes the computer player place its tiles faster.

#### Note:

Enabling this option does not force the computer player to move and does not reduce the level of difficulty.

### Enable/Disable Sound

The last option of the Game tab in the Preferences dialogue allows you to enable or disable all sounds when playing in Iagno.

#### The Preferences menu with the Game tab highlighted.

Screenshot of the game settings.

## Appearance

All the animation options are in the Settings Preferences menus with the Appearance tab highlighted.

### Animation

This option controls the amount of animation present when each tile is flipped, using radio buttons. Selecting the option none will cause the tiles to change colour instantaneously. Selecting the option partial will cause the animation to flip the tiles slowly. Selecting the complete option will cause the tiles to flip slowly and smoothly.

### Stagger Flips

This option causes captured tiles along a row, column, or diagonal to flip one after another, like dominoes; instead of all flipping simultaneously. It has no effect on game play, but looks nice.

### Show Grid

This option will display a grid on top of the playing surface. The grid is useful to display because it shows the player exactly where they are placing each tile.

#### Tip:

This option should be enabled for beginning players to see the gameplay more clearly.

### Flip Final Results

This option moves all the black tiles to the top of the board and all the white tiles to the bottom of the board at the end of the game. This allows you to visually see the outcome of the game.

#### Note:

This option does not affect the outcome of the game in any way.

### Tile Set

This option lets you choose the type of board and tiles which are displayed. If you want to make your own tile sets use the classic tile set as a template and change the texture and colors for different effects. When you make a new tile set that works with Iagno send it to Ian Peters itp@gnu.org and he will include it with the next distribution.

#### Important:

There are two tile sets which look the same, but have different animations — woodtrim and classic.

#### The Preferences menu with the Appearance tab highlighted.

Screenshot of the animation settings.

## Network Games

Iagno supports networked multiplayer games, provided by GGZ Gaming Zone. By connecting to an Iagno server on the Internet, you can challenge other players in multiplayer games. For news, updates and a list of servers to connect to, see the gnome-games website.

To start a multiplayer game of Iagno, select Game Network Game on the Iagno menu.

### Connecting to an Iagno network server

The Iagno connection dialogue is shown initially when starting a new network game. This dialogue allows you to select a server to which to connect, and the username that you will have while connected to that server.

It is possible to connect to a server with either a guest account or a normal registered account. Guest accounts allow you to log in anonymously, while a normal login account allows you to reserve your own username which is protected by the password that you choose.

The Guest Login option should be selected if you want an anonymous guest account. If you want to create a new login account, then select the First-time Login option, with the username, password and e-mail address of your choice. If you have already created your account, you can connect by selecting the Normal Login option, and enter the username and password that you have chosen.

To connect to a server, click on the Connect button.

#### The Iagno network connection dialogue.

The Iagno network connection dialogue.

### Joining a game room

Once you have successfully connected to a server, you can choose which game room to join. To play a multiplayer game of Iagno, select the Iagno room. If you want to host your own game, then click on the Launch button. This creates a new table where other players can participate in a game against you. If there are any other games already started, then you can double-click on an existing game table to join it. The list of game tables on the right shows you the number of available seats, which means the number of players that can join the game table.

#### This Iagno network dialogue allows you to join a game room to find other players.

This Iagno network dialogue allows you to join a game room to find other players.

When creating a new table for Iagno games, a preferences dialogue is displayed which allows you to customise the game, such as set the minimum number of players for the game. Once the total number of seats have been taken, no more players are allowed to join that game table.

It is possible to chat with other players in network games. Ask for advice or help playing the games, but please be polite with other players.

### Waiting for other players to join the game

Once you have successfully joined a game table, then you have to wait until enough players have joined the table. The Players List menu item allows you to see a list of the players who have joined the game. The game will begin immediately when the total number of players in the the game have been reached.

### Playing multiplayer Iagno games

Multiplayer Iagno games have pretty much the same rules as normal Iagno games, except that you are now playing against human players. This means that other strategies might possibly be better than when playing against AI players.

Once a player has won, the game ends and you can return to the initial network game screen. Then you can play yet another game of addictive Iagno multiplayer!

## Known Bugs and Limitations

- The computer player for Iagno is easy to beat.

## Authors

Iagno was written by Ian Peters (itp@gnu.org). This manual was written by Eric Baudais (baudais@okstate.edu). To report a bug or make a suggestion regarding this application or this manual, follow the directions in this document.

## Licence

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public Licence as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the Licence, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public Licence for more details.

A copy of the GNU General Public Licence is included as an appendix to the GNOME Users Guide. You may also obtain a copy of the GNU General Public Licence from the Free Software Foundation by visiting their Web site or by writing to

     Free Software Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place - Suite 330 Boston, MA02111-1307USA