Gamehelpvaultnestorgames

Goal

Vault is a 2-player combinatorial abstract strategy game designed by Néstor Romeral Andrés. Advance your pieces across a 10×10 checkered grid by walking or leaping over friendly pivots to invade your opponent's back rank. If you start your turn with at least one pawn on the opponent's back rank, you win!

Components

Component	Icon	Description
White Pawns		10 white ceramic pawns controlled by Player 1.
Black Pawns		10 black ceramic pawns controlled by Player 2.
Checkered Board		10×10 grid patterned with 4 distinct tonal squares.

Setup

• White starts with 10 pawns occupying Rank 1 (the bottom row).
• Black starts with 10 pawns occupying Rank 10 (the top row).
• White plays first; players alternate turns.

Your turn

On your turn, you must execute exactly one action:

1. Walk

• Move any friendly pawn one square in any direction (orthogonal or diagonal, like a Chess King) to an adjacent unoccupied square.
• Walking cannot make captures.

2. Jump (Vault)

• Select a friendly jumping pawn and a second friendly pawn to act as a pivot.
• The jumping pawn leaps over the pivot in a straight line, landing at the exact symmetrical mirror distance on the opposite side:

$$\text{Landing Square} = 2 \times \text{Pivot} - \text{Jumper}$$

• Jumps may be executed along any vector (orthogonal, diagonal, or knight-like angles). Intermediate squares between jumper, pivot, and landing site may be empty or occupied.
• Captures: If the landing square is occupied by an enemy pawn, that enemy pawn is captured and removed from the board! You cannot land on a friendly pawn or off the board.

Board tones & colorblind support

• The board features a 4-toned checkered pattern .
• Because every jump doubles vector distances, the takeoff square and landing square of any valid jump are mathematically guaranteed to share the exact same board tone!
• Enabling Colorblind Support (Preference 100) displays distinct geometric markers on each of the 4 tones.

End of the game

• Back rank victory: If you land a pawn on the opponent's back rank and they cannot capture it on their very next turn with a legal jump, you win at the start of your turn! (If they have no legal capture available, you win immediately).
• Stalemate: If a player starts their turn with no legal moves (neither a walk nor a jump), that player loses and their opponent wins.

Controls on BGA

• Walking: Click a friendly pawn to select it; valid adjacent empty walk squares highlight green. Click an adjacent square to stage your move, then click blue Confirm.
• Vaulting: Click your jumper pawn, then click a friendly pivot pawn. Valid landing squares highlight in blue (or red for captures). Click the landing square and confirm.
• Undo: Click red Undo to cancel a staged move before confirmation.