REVERSI(6) Games Manual REVERSI(6)
NAME
reversi - a game of dramatic reversals
SYNOPSIS
/usr/games/reversi [ [ -r ] file ]
DESCRIPTION
Reversi (also known as `friends', `Chinese friends' and `Othello') is played on an 8x8 board using two-sided tokens. Each player takes his
turn by placing a token with his side up in an empty square. During the first four turns, players may only place tokens in the four cen-
tral squares of the board. Subsequently, with each turn, a player must capture one or more of his opponent's tokens. He does this by
placing one of his tokens such that it and another of his tokens embrace a solid line of his opponent's horizontally, vertically or diago-
nally. Captured tokens are flipped over and thus can be re-captured. If a player cannot outflank his opponent he forfeits his turn. The
play continues until the board is filled or until no more outflanking is possible.
In this game, your tokens are asterisks and the machine's are at-signs. You move by typing in the row and column at which you want to
place your token as two digits (1-8), optionally separated by blanks or tabs. You can also type
c to continue the game after hitting break (this is only necessary if you interrupt the machine while it is deliberating).
g n to start reversi playing against itself for the next n moves (or until the break key is hit).
n to stop printing the board after each move.
o to start it up again.
p to print the board regardless.
q to quit (without dishonor).
s to print the score.
Reversi also recognizes several commands which are valid only at the start of the game, before any moves have been made. They are
f to let the machine go first.
h n to ask for a handicap of from one to four corner squares. If you're good, you can give the machine a handicap by typing a negative
number.
l n to set the amount of lookahead used by the machine in searching for moves. Zero means none at all. Four is the default. Greater
than six means you may fall asleep waiting for the machine to move.
t n to tell reversi that you will only need n seconds to consider each move. If you fail to respond in the alloted time, you forfeit
your turn.
If reversi is given a file name as an argument, it will checkpoint the game, move by move, by dumping the board onto file. The -r option
will cause reversi to restart the game from file and continue logging.
REVERSI(6)