Sarnodo

Version 7 and 7.1 and 7.2 (Apr 4, 2022)

• Added bonus silver tiles.
• Added link to instructions on startup screen.

Versions 6 and 6.1 and 6.2 (Mar 12, 2022)

• Added single player mode.
• Enable sound earlier.
• Fixed bug in Reset button in single player mode.
• Revised single player award ranges based on deeper analysis.

Version 5 (Mar 7, 2022)

• Added tooltips to top-line icons for desktops and laptops.
• Removed unnecessary debug logs in the web console.

Version 4 (Mar 5, 2022)

• Made sure if the first player makes 100 points (or more) on their turn, that the second player has one more try.
• Added a link (at the bottom of the game) to the Sarnodo real world board game.

Version 3 (Feb 28, 2022)

• Replaced emoji tiles in instructions with images (emoji tiles did not display correctly on some browsers).

Version 2 (Feb 27, 2022)

• Added version history/fixed bugs button, rearranged top buttons to group them more logically.
• Added list of technologies used to the bottom of the instructions page.
• Added a loading image to avoid confusing view while loading the share URL dialog.
• Minor size adjustment to account for smaller screens (e.g. Moto G4).
• Fixed bug where game initiator tries to use the URL intended for second player. Game should now recognize this and make sure the initiator joins as the first player.

Version 1 (Feb 26, 2022)

• Initial release!

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Contact for more information.

Two Player Instructions

In Sarnodo, players take turns placing tiles from their tile tray onto the game board. On any given turn, the pieces you place on the game board must all lie along the same row, or the same column.

The objective is to put your tiles into either palindromes, or repeating patterns.

For example, a palindrome:

A palindrome is symmetrical, the pattern from the left to the center is mirrored from the center to the right. A palindrome can be made of either an odd or even number of tiles.

A repeating pattern must have two or more repetitions of at least two tiles (so, the smallest possible repeating pattern would be four tiles long). For example:

Every player must make their play such that at least one of the tiles they place is adjacent to a tile that was already on the board (above, below, left, or right - diagonals don't count as adjacent). The game starts with a palindrome pattern of 9 tiles (in 4 randomly selected colors) at the center of the board, so even the first player must abide by this rule.

On every turn where you place tiles on the game board, you must place at least 3.

On your turn, instead of placing game tiles on the board, you may choose to pass, or you may choose to redraw your tiles. In either case, that is your entire turn. If both players pass one after another, the game is over and whoever has the most points wins. If this does not happen, the first player to get 100 points wins. If the first player gets 100 points on their turn, the second player will still get one more chance to play.

Scoring at the most basic level is that you get 1 point for every tile you place, but you also get points for extending existing patterns. And in some cases you can extend multiple patterns at once, so you get points for all of them. Here are some examples.

Starting with on the board, you could add 4 red tiles to make:

In that case, you would score 7 points, which is the complete length of the extended pattern (4 points for the tiles you placed, plus 3 points for the existing tiles).

Starting with on the board, you could also add 3 tiles to the right side to make:

This converted the original palindrome to a repeating pattern. Your 3 tiles would actually score 6 points, the length of the final pattern.

Here's a more complex example. Let's start with this:

To that, you could add vertically, like this:

This turns the repeating blue/yellow pattern into a palindrome, and sets up a small horizonal pattern of 2 reds in a row, which is technically considered a palindrome, as well. You are not allowed to place only 2 tiles to make such a pattern, but if one arises like this, it counts. So those 3 tiles that were added score 3 for themselves, then score an additional 2 for the double-red pattern, and an additional 7 for the blue/yellow palindrome extension, for a total of 12 points.

You cannot place tiles that would break any existing palindromes or repeating patterns.

If you use all 7 tiles in your tray in one turn, the score you earned during that turn is doubled.

There are a small number of silver bonus tiles in the game. Instead of being worth 1 point each, as the other colors are, silver tiles are worth 5 points. They are still bound by the same pattern rules as the other color tiles. Only 3.2% of the tiles are silver. Since you score the whole length of every pattern you make or extend, a silver tile already on the board earns its 5 points again for whoever later extends or crosses a pattern that includes it. In order to maximize their worth, you may want to hold onto them and use them when you can also get a corner bonus or a bonus for using all 7 tiles in your tray (or both).

The four corner squares (with pulsating borders) are bonus squares. If you place tiles on one of those squares, the score you earned during that turn is tripled. Each corner counts separately, so a line that covers two corners is multiplied by 9. These bonuses combine with the bonus for clearing all 7 tiles from your tray: clear your tray and cover one corner in the same turn, and your score for that turn is multiplied by 6.

At the end of each turn, additional tiles are drawn and added to your tray to make sure you always have 7 tiles in the tray at the beginning of your next turn. There are a total of 155 tiles available in the game: 25 tiles in each of the 6 primary colors, plus 5 silver tiles.

If the bag runs out of tiles, the game continues, but empty slots in your tray are no longer refilled. With fewer than 7 tiles in your tray you can no longer earn the bonus for using all 7. If you can't make a legal play, you can still pass or redraw (redrawing puts your tiles back in the bag and draws again).

Statistics

There are 155 tiles available in the game. For the 6 primary colors, there are 25 tiles of each. For the 7th color (silver), there are 5 tiles.

Settings and Other Info

Sound can be enabled or disabled by clicking on the speaker icon in the upper-right corner. Your setting will be remembered the next time you play.

Hit the settings icon in the upper-left corner to select full color tiles, grayscale tiles, or colorblind optimized tiles (using the Bang Wong palette). You can also enable or disable adding shapes into the tiles if that helps you distinguish them. Your setting will be remembered the next time you play.

You can leave games and come back to them later. A game you start or join will show up on the Sarnodo homescreen in a list. Next to each game are buttons to rejoin the game and delete it from your list.

About Sarnodo

Sarnodo is built using: Lambda, DynamoDB, API Gateway, S3, CloudFront, Route 53, Simple Email Service, IAM, ACM, CloudWatch, CDK, Bootstrap, and jQuery. It is a one-person project.