Arimaa Rules
Arimaa, pronounced "ah-REE-ma," is a modern strategy game that simulates a sport similar to Rugby or Football(American style), but without the ball. Instead of getting a ball to the end zone, the team tries to help their smallest
player reach the end zone. The other team is also trying to do the same thing at the same time. The first team toget their smallest player to the end zone wins the game. As the coach of the team, you are the mastermind behind
the teams strategy, and must guide them to victory.
The game is played on a field divided into an 8x8 grid of 64 squares. The two teams have 16 players each; withone team being gold and the other silver. The players are assigned positions based on their size. Animal names areused for the positions. Each team has 1 elephant, 1 camel, 2 horses, 2 dogs, 2 cats and 8 rabbits; from largest tosmallest in size. Any one of the eight rabbit players needs to reach the end zone to win the game.
The game begins with an empty field. The gold team enters first, and the players stand in any configuration on thefirst and second ranks. Only one player may stand in a square at a time. The silver team then enters the field, andthe players may stand in any configuration on the seventh and eighth ranks. The first and eighth ranks are the endzones.
The gold team moves first followed by silver. A move consists of 4 steps, where each step is the movement of aplayer from the current square to an adjacent unoccupied square. In Arimaa, adjacent always means orthogonallyadjacent; so a player may step to an adjacent square by moving left, right, forward, and backward. However, therabbit players cannot step backwards. The team can distribute the four steps any way it wants. One player cantake all four steps, or the four steps can be distributed among various different players. A player taking more than
one step may change directions after each step. The team does not need to use all 4 steps, as long as at least one
step is taken to change the state of the game.
Players can push or pull smaller players from the opposing team. They cannot, however, push or pull opposing
players that are larger or equal in size. A push or pull requires two steps and must be completed within the sameturn. A larger player can push the smaller player to an adjacent unoccupied square and move into the vacatedsquare. A larger player can pull by moving to an adjacent unoccupied square and dragging the smaller player into
the vacated square. A player cannot, however, do both a push and pull simultaneously.
Players that are adjacent to larger players from the opposing team are held frozen and cannot move. However, if ateammate is adjacent to the frozen player, the player is no longer frozen and can move.
There are four muddy spots on the field called traps. They are located at c3, f3, c6 and f6. Players may stand on
or cross through the traps so long as a teammate is adjacent to the trap. A player that is on a trap and has noteammate adjacent for support will slip and fall into the mud and has to sit out for the rest of the game.
A team that has lost all the rabbit players loses the game (by elimination). A team that cannot make a move at all
also loses the game (by immobilization).

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