Torque

                                What is better to end the year other than by playing a new game?

Torque

Overview:

Torque is 2 teams competitive game. Each team consists of two players, where one player plays as the knight while the other becomes the wizard where they need to cooperate to defeat the other team. Each team will be given their turn alternately. Each turn last for only three minutes. During that time, the team that own the turn can do the action. The action that the player can do depends on what role is assigned to him/her. The knight will try to approach the other knight and attack it while the wizard cast the support magic for the friendly knight. Even so, generally what every player needs to do is to twist their rubik to get a desired number of orb on a certain face. After three minutes passed, the turn is over and the other team can start their turn. A team win when they succeed to decrease the other team knight’s health to zero first.

Tools:

The tools that is used in this game are:

1.     Rubik

Rubik plays a big role in this game. Not only rubik determines the actions that you can do, but also whether you will be attacked, which means win and lose! Although there are a lot of rubik types out there, but the one that is used in this game is the normal one. The one with six faces and nine stickers in each face. Each player get his/her own rubik. So to play the game, the number of rubik that needs to be prepared are four.  

2.     Game sticker

Even so we use the normal rubik, but we need to tweak it a little before we can use it. We need to change the stickers to something that related to the game. To do this, we need to put the new stickers that can be downloaded from here, on top of the normal stickers. Because there are two different roles in the game (knight and wizard), there are also two types of sticker:

a.     Knight sticker

Knight sticker consists of 1 attack symbol, 1 defense symbol, 2 move symbols, 2 rage symbols, 24 orbs, and blank for the rest.

The order of the placement of the sticker is depicted below:

Note: the picture shows the position of the sticker when the rubik is flattened, you know, when you imaginatively represent the rubik into 2D space.

As you can see, the placement of the sticker divides the rubik into six faces with a distinguished sticker at their center. From now on, the face with attack symbol at its center is called as the attack face, the one with defense is called as defense face, the one with move sticker as move face and the one with rage sticker as rage face.

b.     Wizard sticker

Knight sticker consists of 2 moon symbols, 1 moon extra cost symbol, 2 star symbols, 1 star extra cost symbol, 24 orbs, and blank for the rest.

The order of the placement of the sticker is depicted below:

Just as knight sticker, the placement of the sticker divides the rubik into six faces with different sticker at their center. The face with moon symbol at its center is called as the moon face, the one with moon extra cost is called as moon x-cost face, the one with star symbol as star face and the one with star extra cost as star x-cost face.

3.     Game boards (optional)

Game boards is used to show the other information. There are four boards in the game. Knight’s life board, knight’s rage board, wizard’s mana board, and wizard’s magic skill board. There are also three small pointers that are used to point the current value of life, rage, and mana. All the boards and pointers asset can be downloaded from here.

So you see, the function of these board is only to help you remember some of the game information. So it’s fairly optional. Whether you want to use it or not is your choice. If you think you can handle the information in your head or you like to use another means to represent the information (maybe you prefer to just write the value in a paper), then go ahead!

Rule

Just has been stated on the overview, there are two roles that a team must have. This means between two players in the same team, one must be the knight and the other as the wizard. It is not allowed to create a team of two knight or two wizard. The knight and the wizard of the same team can do the action when their team turn has come. Even so, the action of the knight and the wizard are different.

1.     Knight:

Just as the strong and brave Arthur, if you play as the knight, your task is to defeat the opponent knight. However, before inflicting your mighty blow, first you need to approach the target. 

      The actions that the knight can do are divided into two, move and attack.

Move action:

To move, the knight must twist his/her rubik. Every time the knight twist the rubik, it will give a new number of orb in move faces. The total of the orb in those two faces determines the knight new position. So for example, after twisting the rubik, the number of the orb in the move faces are 3 and 4. That means, the knight current position is 7 (3+4). A knight can only attack when s/he is in the same location as the opponent knight current position. So in order to do that, the knight must twist the rubik until the total orb in two move faces equals to the opponent knight total orb in his/her rubik move faces.

Moving is very important. Not only to approach the enemy, but it can also determine whether the enemy can attack the knight in his/her next turn (after the knight’s team turn is over, his/her final position will be the opponent target location. So by putting the knight in easy to get location, it can make the opponent can attack him/her quickly!). Other than that, moving is also used to get a support from your wizard team mate (will be explained on wizard part).

Attack action:

After the knight arrived at the opponent knight position, the knight can continue to the next action, which is attack. But before that, knight must show the opponent team his/her current move faces as a proof that the knight has arrived at the opponent knight position. If failed to do that, even the knight attack the opponent knight, it doesn’t count!

Just as the move action, attack action also requires the knight to twist the rubik. However, the focus is different. At the attack action, the priority is the number of the orb in attack and defense face. The number of orb in attack face determines knight attack power, while the number of orb in defense face shows knight defense power. Knight CAN only inflict the damage to the opponent knight if his attack power is greater than the enemy defense power. If that happens, the difference between them will reduce the enemy health. For example, knight has 6 orbs in his/her attack face, while the enemy only has 5 orbs in the defense face. It makes the knight succeed dealing 1 damage (6 - 5) to the enemy health. When declaring an attack, just as when arrived at opponent position, knight must also show the opponent team his/her attack and defense face.

After knight finished the attack action (it happens when the knight succeed dealing the damage to the enemy), knight cannot twist the rubik again.

When the time (3 minutes) is over, regardless you have finished the action or not, your team turn is ended and the knight’s total orb in move faces will be his/her final position, and the number of orb in the defense face will be the knight final defense power. This two things is critically important, because it will affect how easy the opponent knight attack the knight in his/her next turn! Also, when the time is over, if the knight succeed reduced the enemy knight’s health in that turn, the total number of orb in two rage faces will fill the knight rage meter.

Knight’s rage meter

At the start of the game, knight’s rage meter is at zero. Just has been explained before, if a knight can deal the damage to the opponent knight, s/he will be awarded with rage point at the end of the turn based on the total number of orb in both of rage faces at that time. When this point arrived or exceed 30, the knight will go to hyper mode in his/her team next turn. In hyper mode, knight can temporary change knight’s equipment and gain some extra power. There are two equipment that knight can choose, offender set and protector set.

a. Offender set

If knight chose the offender set, knight attack power gain extra power as big as half of the current defense power. The defense power value remains the same. So if knight attack power is 6 and defense power is 4, then knight attack power will be 8 (6 + (4 / 2)), while knight defense power is 4.

Other than that, knight also gains extra ability. By using offender inert talent, knight can instantly teleport to the enemy location. By doing this, knight can cut the time for chasing the enemy. Even so, the same rule still applied. Knight still needs to declare when using it and after using it, knight will continue to attack action and cannot go back to move action again.

b. Protector set

If knight chose the protector set, knight defense power gain extra power as big as half of the current attack power. The attack power value remains the same. So if knight attack power is 5 and defense power is 6, then knight defense power will be 8 (6 + (5 / 2)), while knight attack power is 5.

Other than that, knight also gains extra ability. By using protector inert talent, knight can recover some of his/her health by attacking the enemy. When knight succeed attacking the enemy, other than decreased the enemy health, the difference between knight attack power and opponent knight defense power also restored the knight health.

Hyper mode lasts for two turns, knight’s team turn and enemy team turn. When knight next turn comes the hyper mode will be over, and rage meter backs to zero again.  

1.     Wizard:

Like a wise Merlin, if you play as the wizard, your task is to support the knight from distance. Being far away from the battleground, enemy cannot attack you. However, if you fail to give a good support to the knight and let the knight dies, you also lose. 

The action that wizard can do is only casting the support magic to the knight. There are rules that need to be obeyed in order to use magic. First, wizard should choose which symbol (star or moon) that will be used to channel the magic. Second, specify the target (your knight ally) location. Last, pay the mana that the selected magic consumes. Based on magician skill, it can cost differently, even for the same magic!

So, if your role is the wizard, this is what you must do:

1.     Choose the symbol to contain the magic.

There are two available magic symbols, moon and star. Each symbol can be used only for one magic on each of your turn. That means, in every your turn, you can cast maximum up to two magic. All magic can only be used once. However, heal, attack up, defense up, can be leveled up. By paying a higher raw mana, it effect can be increased. For example, heal normally replenishes 2 health by using 3 raw mana. But by giving 6 raw mana, it effect is doubled so it can heal up to 4 health. The maximum level for those magic is three.

2.     Specify the target.

Twist the rubik so the total of the orb in the two of the same chosen symbols matches with the knight ally current position (total orb in both move rubik faces). Now that is the hard thing. Because at the same time the knight also twisting his/her rubik so his/her position is always changing. To solve that, you can make an agreement with the knight about the position. Maybe you decided to cast the magic at the enemy position before knight start the attack action (so you can kill two birds at the same time), or maybe in the other place (which more easily to get), it's your choice! Oh, and also, even though knight cannot twist the rubik again after s/he finished the attack, it's a different case for wizard. Wizard can cast magic anytime as long as there is time left.

3.     Pay the mana.

Wizard must pay the mana after the magic has been casted. The amount of the mana depends on the raw cost + extra cost. Raw cost is the number at the bottom right of the magic skill (look at the magic skill list board). Extra cost comes from the number of the orb in moon x-cost or star x-cost (depends on which symbol you choose to contain the magic). If your mana is insufficient, although you already have the same number of total orb in moon or star faces with the knight current position, the magic cannot be used.

4.     Activate the magic.

After all condition met, just shout the magic and show the moon or star faces (that is used to contain the magic) to the opponent! Look at their terrified face!

To make it clearer, here is an example of using magic. You, the wizard, chose to use heal magic. Your knight position is 10. You select moon to contain the magic (you do not need to state it though). After your hard work, your rubik ended up with 6 orb in one moon face and 4 orb in the other, which is the same number of orb as the knight movement, 10!

This means you can cast the magic! Or that what is your though.

Looking at the moon x-cost, there are 5 orbs in it. So, the total mana that will be consumed to use the skill is 8 (3 + 5, where 3 from raw cost and 5 from moon x-cost face). Which is bad, because you only have 6 mana left.

In this situation, some (but not all) things that you can do is,

1.     lower the number of orb in the moon x-cost face,

2.      change the location where the magic will be sent,

Or, another option that you can take is to forfeit the healing magic on this turn, and decided to cast it on the next turn. It can be happen because after your turn ends, your mana will be replenish by 5 point. Just as shown in mana board, the maximum of mana that you can have is 30. So if your mana already 30, it won’t increase anymore. Different with knight’s rage meter, at the start of the game, wizard gets a full mana (30 points).

Magic skill description:

Starting the game

Torque is a turn-based game. The question is, who is got to be move first?

In torque the way to decide that is through ‘clashing’.

To do the clashing, first, all players must randomly twist his/her rubik. After that, look at the attack and defense power of both knights. Calculate the damage that each knight will inflict to the other. The team which its knight got higher damage will move first. In addition, the wizard of that team will gain extra mana as big as the damaged that the knight suffered. Even so, those extra mana can only be used at the first turn only. After that turn is over, all extra mana will be discarded, regardless how many it still left. At the other side, the team which its knight won the clash will move second. However, at the bright side, the knight of that team didn’t get any damage at all from clashing.  

So, that is all that you must know to play the game. It needs to be noted though, that this game is only at its first version. All information (even the name) is a subject to change. So, if you have a suggestion how to improve it, please let us know. Ral and Lus, sign out!

Glossary

Clashing. A way to determine which team will move first.

Knight. A role that one of the player in a team must take. The knight job is to diminish the opponent knight to zero in order win the game.

Mana. The energy that is consumed when casting a magic.

Offender. One of power that knight can choose when his/her rage meter is full. Offender focus on its high attack power.

Orb. The sticker beside blank that surround the center of the face. It determines the power of the face where it located.

Protector. One of the power that knight can choose when his/her rage meter is full. Protector focus on its high defense power.

Rage. A special ability that the knight possess. When it is full, Knight can change into offender or protector.

Ral and Lus. Oh that is us :D

Twist. The action of turning the rubric. There are no limits how many side you can twist. Player twist the rubik in order to accumulate a desired number of orb in a specific rubik face.

Wizard. A role that one of the player in a team must take. The wizard job is to support the knight by casting magic to him/her.