Triple Town

1 The Board

The board has 35 board tiles—in a 6 by 6 grid, not including the northwest corner—plus a storehouse that holds either a single move tile or nothing. (The storehouse is displayed at the northwest corner in the original game.)

A board tile is one of the following:

• blank

• grass

• bush

• tree

• hut

• house

• mansion

• castle

• floating-castle

• triple-castle

• (Extended game) bear

• (Extended game) ninja-bear

• (Extended game) tombstone

• (Extended game) church

• (Extended game) cathedral

• (Extended game) chest

• (Extended game) large-chest

• (Extended game) rock

• (Extended game) mountain

A move tile is one of the following:

• grass — generated as a move 73% (extended game: 61%) of the time.

• bush — generated as a move 18% (extended game: 15%) of the time.

• tree — generated as a move 2% (extended game: 2%) of the time.

• hut — generated as a move 1% (extended game: 1%) of the time.

• crystal — generated as a move 2% (extended game: 2%) of the time.

• imperial-bot — generated as a move 4% (extended game: 3%) of the time.

• (Extended game) bear — generated as a move 15% of the time.

• (Extended game) ninja-bear — generated as a move 1% of the time.

2 Moves

Given a board and a (randomly generated) move tile, a move consists of one of the following:

• Place the move tile in the storehouse. If the storehouse contains a move tile already, play continues with the old move tile from the storehouse as the current move tile. Otherwise, play continues with a new move tile.

• Place a move tile other than a imperial-bot or crystal on any board location that currently contains a blank tile. The board is then multi-collapsed at the selected location, bears move, and play proceeds to a new move (with a new move tile).

• Place an imperial-bot move tile on any board location that is not blank and does not contain a chest or large-chest:

  • (Extended game) If the board tile at the selected location is bear or ninja-bear, it is replaced with tombstone, and the board is multi-collapsed at the selected location.

  • (Extended game) If the board tile at the selected location is mountain, it is replaced with chest, and the board is multi-collapsed at the selected location.

  • If the board tile at the selected location is anything else, it is replaced by blank.

  Afterward, bears move, and play proceeds to a new move (with a new move tile).

• Place a crystal move tile on any board location that current contains a blank tile. The board is changed by replacing the blank with the last of the following that creates a match at the selected location, or blank (extended game: rock) if none of the following create a match at the selected location:

  • grass

  • bush

  • tree

  • (Extended game) tombstone

  • hut

  • (Extended game) church

  • house

  • (Extended game) cathedral

  • mansion

  • castle

  • (Extended game) chest

  • floating-castle

  Afterward, the board is multi-collapsed, bears move, and play proceeds to a new move (with a new move tile).

• (Extended game) Select a chest or large-chest tile. The selected tile is changed to blank, and play continues using the same move tile.

3 Matches and Collapsing

A match of N or more occurs at a location when N contiguous board tiles are the same including the tile at the location.

When a match occurs at a location, collapse at the location by replaing the tile at the location as follows, and replace all other tiles that form the match with blank:

• grass — converted to bush

• bush — converted to tree

• tree — converted to hut

• hut — converted to house

• house — converted to mansion

• mansion — converted to castle

• castle — converted to floating-castle

• floating-castle — converted to triple-castle, but only for a match of 4 or more

• (Extended game) tombstone — converted to church

• (Extended game) church — converted to cathedral

• (Extended game) cathedral — converted to chest

• (Extended game) chest — converted to large-chest

• (Extended game) rock — converted to mountain

• (Extended game) mountain — converted to large-chest

4 Multi-Collapsing

A board is multi-collapsed at a given location as follows:

1. Collapse any match at the location until no match occurs at the location.

2. (Extended game) If no blank tiles appear on the board, change any ninja-bear tile to a tombstone.

3. (Extended game) For any bear for which no blank or ninja-bear board tile can be reached by following only a path of other bears, change the bear to a tombstone.

4. (Extended game) Again, collapse any match at the location, until no match occurs at the location. (A new match might become available due to converting a bear or ninja-bear to a tombstone.)

5. (Extended game) Finally, check for a match at each location that has a tombstone, checking tombstones in traversal order, and collapse the board at any such location.

5 Moving Bears

(Extended game) The bears move as follows:

1. Each ninja-bear is moved, in traversal order, to a random location. Each ninja-bear is moved once and one at a time, and all ninja-bears are moved before bears.

2. Each bear, considered in traversal order, moves to a random adjacent blank. Each bear is moved once and one at a time.

6 Traversal Order

(Extended game) When a traversal order is needed, use this one: