# &app; Manual V&manrevision;

## 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 color as possible without your opponent flipping your tiles. This is done by trapping your opponent's tiles between two tiles of your own color.

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 color 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 color in the same row, the player captures tiles until another tile of the player's color 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 center of the middle column because there are white tiles blocking the ends of that column. If it where blacks 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 Color 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 Players tab in the Preferences dialog you can set the type of player for each color. 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 Players 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.

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

Screenshot of the player settings.

## Appearance

All the animation option 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 color 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 cool.

### 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 three tile sets which look the same, but have different animations -- woodtrim, shrink, and blend.

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

Screenshot of the animation settings.

## Known Bugs and Limitations

- The computer player for Iagno is easy to beat.

## Authors

Iagno was written by Ian Peters (itp@gnu.org). Please send all comments, suggestions, and bug reports to the GNOME bug tracking database. (Instructions for submitting bug reports can be found on-line.) If you are using GNOME 1.1 or later, you can also use Bug Report Tool (`bug-buddy`), available in the Utilities submenu of Main Menu, for submitting bug reports.

This manual was written by Eric Baudais (baudais@okstate.edu). Please send all comments and suggestions regarding this manual to the GNOME Documentation Project by sending an email to docs@gnome.org. You can also add your comments online by using the GNOME Documentation Status Table.

## License

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, 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 License for more details.

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

        Free Software Foundation, Inc.
        59 Temple Place - Suite 330
        Boston, MA 02111-1307
        USA