How to Play

Players randomly select either yellow or orange and place their animals in the corresponding squares on their side of the board.

The player that first enters the opponents Den with any animal wins the game.

Orange begins. Players take turns moving any animal one square each turn in any direction except diagonally. It is not allowed to move to a square already occupied by your own animal or animal of the opponent with higher rank.

An animal can move to a square occupied by an animal of the opponent with lower or equal rank. This is the attack and the animal that was attacked is removed from the game.

At the end of your turn:

• If any animal(s) of the opponent are in a position to attack in the next turn declare them as hungry to the opponent.
• If any of your own animal(s) was declared as hungry in the previous turn but did not attack they starve and are automatically removed from the game.

Animals can move to Trap squares. Any animal in a trap square that is currently not attacking has their rank reduced to 0.

A player cannot enter his own Den. Movement is required (there is no pass). There is always a winner, the game cannot end in a draw.

Special Powers

• The Rat[1] and Dog[3] are the only animals that can enter and move (and attack) on water.
• The Rat[1] can attack the Elephant[8] from land (not from water).
• A jump is a move or attack over the water from one side to another. A jump cannot be done if the path is blocked by an animal of the opponent inside the water.
• The Lion[7] and the Tiger[6] can jump vertically and horizontally.
• The Leopard[5] can jump horizontally (not vertically).

Limit of repeated moves

The player with the most living animals, or the starting player if both players have the same amount of animals, is not allowed to repeat the same board state more than 3 times.

This rule was necessary to be added to prevent a rare situation in which both players keep moving the same animals back and forth. In contrast to Chess, Clesto cannot end in a draw.

Recommendation after your first few plays

Clesto should be played as a quick game. Use a Chess clock (app or physical). If the time ends, the opponent wins. We recommend a time of 5-15 minutes per player and with a 2 second bonus time.