QUINTETTE - The Dancing Stones

Typed in by THE SOUTHERN STAR. Edited by PATRASITE.

quintet, quintette (kwin tet') n. [<Fr. or It.: Fr. quintette < It.
quintetto, dim. of quinto, a fifth < L. quintus: see QUINT1] 1. Music
a) a composition for five voices or five instruments, as for string quartet
and piano b) the five performers of such a composition. 2. a group of five
persons or things.

QUINTETTE, a re-creation of the classic Japanese game Ninuki-Renju, is a
fast-paced strategy game for two players, based on several ancient games
such as GO and Go Moku. Quintette strikes a delicate balance between the
simplicity of Go Moku, and the deep strategies of GO. At first glance
Quintette looks like a variation of tic-tac-toe, and it's rules are
deceptively simple to learn, but the player soon finds more sophisticated
levels of strategy, and the game becomes increasingly absorbing. The
Quintette application also plays Go Moku, and can bew used as a playing
surface for other games that use the same type of board as Quintette, such
as GO.

THE OBJECT
There are two ways to win in Quintette:
1. By creating an unbroken row of five (or more) or your stones in a row,
horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, or
2. By capturing five (or more) pairs of your opponent's stones.

THE BOARD
The board is a 19 x 19 grid of intersections. Stones are placed on the
intersections (called points), and on the edge of the board; not in the
spaces between them:

THE STONES
The first player (normally black) places the first stone on the center
point. The players then take turns placing their stones, one per turn, on
any empty point. Stones are not removed from the board, except when they
are captured (see below). The game continues, turn by turn, until one
player wins.

THE TOURNAMENT RULE
In Quintette, as well as Go Moku, the first player has a slight advantage
over the player that moves second. To remove this advantage, the Tournament
Rule states that THE FIRST PLAYER'S SECOND MOVE MUST BE THREE OR MORE
POINTS AWAY FROM THE CENTER. A square may be traced between the four
innermost stars on the board. The first player's move must be on or outside
this square. The Tournament Rule may be turned off. See below.

CAPTURING
You may capture a pair of your opponent's stones by bracketing both of the
pair's ends with your stones. Only pairs (two adjacent stones,
horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) are vulnerable to capture.
Captured pairs are always removed; you may not choose to leave them on the
board. Captured pairs are indicated on the sides of the board.

Example: Black places a stone on the indicated point, bracketing White;s
pair. The pair is then captured and removed from the board as shown.

        0xx0<-

Multiple captures: You may capture more than one pair of opponent's stones
with a single move.

Example: Black's move brackets both of White's pairs, and thus captures
them.
                 0xx0<-
                  x
                 x
                0

Moving into a captured position: You may play a stone on any unoccupied
point, even if that point has been previously occupied, or forms a pair
between two of your opponent's stones.

Example: White's move below is legal and no pieces are captured.

           0xx0
             ^

PLAYING HINTS
The goal of the game is to get an unbroken row of five (a Quintette)....

              00000

...or to capture five pairs of your opponent's stones (also a Quintette).

One subgoal of winning can be to obtain an unbroken row of four stones,
unblocked on both ends. This configuration is called a quartette:

        0000

As you can see, no matter which end the opponent blocks, you may play the
other end to achieve a win. If your opponent has the configuration below, a
trio, you must quickly block one end or the other to prevent your opponent
from making a quartette.

        000

Some situations are not as obviously dangerous as the quartette and trio.
In the situation below, Black must block in one of the three circled points
in order to prevent White from making a quartette.

        0xx0x0
        ^  ^ ^

BASIC STRATEGY
To win Quintette, it is best to gain the initiative. The player who has the
initiative is able to control the flow of the game more effectively, and
influence it's final outcome. To gain the initiative, you must make
stronger and more threatening moves than your opponents, forcing them to
counter your moves rather than moving to advance their ultimate goals.
Building intersecting groups of threes and fours can also be helpful in
gaining the initiative. Move to give yourself the most options in the
future, and work towards building a "double threat" that your opponent
cannot block completely.

GO MOKU
The fules for Go Moku are identical to Quintette with one exception: Go
Moku does not allow or consider captures, so there is only one way to win;
by making five in a row. Moves which would capture in Quintette do nothing
extrordinary in Go Moku, so don't make such moves unless you have some
other strategic reason for doing so.

PLAYING THE GAME
When Quintette starts up, you will see the board in the center of the
screen. it will be preset to play a game of Quintette at the Intermediate 1
level. The computer will take approximately 40 seconds to make it's move at
this level. If you have not played Quintette before you may want to select
a lower level from the Difficulty menu. Black moves first, and the human
player is Black, so you must make the first move of the game by using the
mouse to move the cursor to the center of the board, and clicking. you will
notice that the cursor changes to the shape of a black piece with it is
over a legal move (in this case, the center). If you try to make an illegal
move, you will hear a sound indicating that it is not allowable. if you
click again on an illegal move, Quintette will notify you as to why that
move is illegal.

Once you make a legal move, Quintette will begin to contemplate it's
response, and the pointer will flicker through a variety of meditative
symbols. Quintette will then make it;s move and it will be your turn again.
When the game is over no moves will be valid, so to start a new game you
must select New from the File menu. You may tell Quintette to hurry up and
finish it's thinking by holding down the Right Amiga key (th stylized A key
at the bottom-right of the keyboard) and pressing the period (".")
Quintette will then finish it's thinking in about five seconds, but it's
move may be slightly inferior to the move it would have made if it is
allowed to finish.

THE MENUS
The PROJECT menu contains the following commands:

NEW
        Completely erase the current board position, and start a new game
using the settings from the SETUP menu (see below).

SAVE
        Save your curent game. This works like most other applications.

SAVE AS...
        Save your current game under a new name. This works like most other
applications.

OPEN..
        Open a previously saved game. This works like most other application.

ABOUT QUINTETTE....
        Shows you the version, author, copyright, and distribution notice.

QUIT
        This ends your session with Quintette.

Changing the settings in the SETUP menu has no immediate effect on the game
currently in progress, but will take effect when you start a new game by
selecting NEW from the FILE menu, or clicking the OK button in the MODIFY
BOARD mode.

The settings in the SETUP menu are:

PLAY QUINTETTE
        The new game will be played by Quintette rules.

PLAY GO MOKU
        The new game will be played according to Go Moku rules.

HUMA LEFT VS. COMPUTER RIGHT
        You will play against Quintette. The color of your pieces will be
whatever color is currently assigned to the LEFT column of the Move List
(see below).

HUMAN RIGHT VS. COMPUTER LEFT
        You will play against Quintette. The color of your pieces will be
whatever color is currently assigned to the RIGHT column of the Move List
(see below).

HUMAN VS. HUMAN
        You and another player will match wits.

COMPUTER VS. COMPUTER
        Quintette will play itself.

LEFT GOES FIRST
        The player who's moves are recorded in the LEFT column of the Move
List goes first (see below).

RIGHT GOES FIRST
        The player who's moves are recorded in the RIGHT column of the Move
List goes first (see below).

FLIP FOR IT
                The first player will be chosen randomly when the game starts.

USE TOURNAMENT RULE
        If checked, the Tournament Rule will be enforced.

The DIFFICULTY menu allows you to select how long Quintette gets to think
about it's move. The times are approximately:

NOVICE 1                10-20 seconds
NOVICE 2                20-30 seconds
INTERMEDIATE 1          30-40 seconds
INTERMEDIATE 2           1-3 minutes
INTERMEDIATE 3           5-10 minutes
ADVANCED 1              10-15 minutes
ADVANCED 2              20-30 minutes
OVERNIGHT                6-8 hours

The FEATURES menu contains the following commands and options:

SHOW/HIDE MOVE LIST
        This displays or removes the list of moves in the current game.
Each move is notated by it's distance from the center point, which is
designated 0.

        Moves which cause captures are notated with an asterisk ("*"). You
may use the scroll bar to scroll through a move list that is too long to
fit on the screen at once. The left column of the Move List is black at
first, and the right column is white, but you can reassign the piece colors
to suit your preferences (see last page).

MODIFY BOARD
        Selecting this allows you to edit the current board position. You
will see two buttons, labeled OK and UNDO. Clicking the UNDO button
restores the board position to it's unmodified state. Clicking OK saves
your changes and starts a new game using the settings in the SETUP menu.

EDITING THE BOARD
        Below the OK and the UNDO buttons is a stone that will be black
initially and you will notice that clicking on it changes it from Black to
White and back again. If you have reassigned the piece colors, they will be
different from this example. You can also hold down the Shift key to
temporarily change the color of the stone. When you click on an empty point
you will place stones of the same color as the indicator stone. you will
continue to place stones of that color as long as you hold down the mouse
button. Removing stones works the same way, except you click on an occupied
point to begin removing stones.

SETTING CAPTURES
        If the SETUP menu indicates that the new game will be played by
Quintette rules, two diamond shaped controls will appear at the lower-left
and upper-right of the board. Clicking and dragging up and down in these
controls will change the number of captures the players have. White stones
appear for Black's (the left player's captures, and Black stones for
White's (the right player's).

PLAYING OTHER GAMES
        Several other ancient games, such as GO, use a board like that used
in Quintette. By entering the MODIFY BOARD mode, no restrictions are placed
on the movement of stones, so GO and other games can be played between two
humans. You can save your game by clicking the OK button and saving as
usual. Of course, Quintette does not know how to play GO, etc. so no Move
List is generated.

TAKE BACK MOVE and DONE TAKING BACK
        Moves in the Move List can be taken back. When you select TAKE BACK
MOVE one move will be removed from the board and any captures that move
caused will be replaced. The game in progress will be suspended until you
select DONE TAKING BACK.

EXAMPLE: You realize that the move Quintette just made is a killer, and you
wish to replay the move before Quintette's. You select TAKE BACK MOVE and
Quintette's move disappears. It is not Quintette's move again but it won't
move unless you select DONE TAKING BACK. You wish to take back your move
now, so you select TAKE BACK MOVE once again and your move (the one you
didn't like) disappears. You no select DONE TAKING BACK and the game
resumes. It is now your turn and you are free to select a different move.

LEFT PLAYER COLOR and RIGHT PLAYER COLOR
        Black and white can ge pretty dull, so here you can customize the
color of the pieces you will play with. Selecting one of these options
reveals a sub-menu containing black, white, and many other colors. Choose a
color from the sub-menu and the selected palyer will use the selected
color. note that you are now allowed to assign the same color to both
players.