Elevation

The game is played on a 6x6 grid with 'terrain' tiles stacked on every square. The 'board' is the inside of the box that the game comes in. Each player has six pieces: Two fish, two dragons and two samurai. Players take turns to play. To win, you must capture all of your opponents pieces.

Each turn:

Choose one of your pieces to play with. There are two basic things that every piece can do:

Dig

Means picking up a terrain tile from any square that is adjacent to the piece you are playing (horizontally, vertically or diagonally) and placing it back onto any other adjacent square.

• You may not place terrain onto squares that are occupied by another pieces.
• You may not remove terrain from squares that contain an enemy piece.
• You can remove terrain from beneath friendly pieces.

Move 

The basic move is one square horizontally, vertically or diagonally.

• You may not climb up more than one vertical step as you move.
• You can drop down as many vertical steps as needed.
• If you are at least TWO steps higher than an adjacent enemy piece then you can move onto that square and capture it.
• Otherwise, you can only move into vacant squares

A "Basic Move" is to either dig, then move...or...move, then dig. The three types of game-piece can all do a basic move - but the Fish and Dragon have extra abilities:

The Fish 

Can perform a basic move - but can instead:

• Dig, then move TWO squares - but only diagonally...or...
• Move TWO squares, diagonally - then dig.

The Dragon 

Can perform a basic move - but can instead:

• Dig twice - but not move.
• Move twice - but not dig.
• Move upwards by two vertical steps instead of one - but not dig.

Game Over

The game is over when one player has no pieces left or is unable to make a move.

A stalemate (draw) happens when neither player wishes to move - or if you each undo the other player's move three times in a row.