The game of Life Stones is a light take on life. Like life, it has a few twists and turns.

First, the objective of the game is to collect colored stones that represent life skills. As in life, there are two approaches (scoring methods) you can take. The first is “More is Better”. You know these type of people, the more cars they have, the more children they have, the more money they have, the better off they are. Same applies here. Collect more of the same color, the higher your score. The twist is only the first three colors count for a positive score and the rest count as a negative score.

Second, each of the computer players can be independently programmed. Like life, not everyone is the same! And we decided to stear clear of the traditional “Easy, Medium, and Hard” settings. Instead, we gave the AI “Conservative, Normal, and Aggressive” and “Selfish, Balanced, and Vengeful”. Sound like people you know?

Navigation:

Navigation, from screen to screen, uses the small leaves in the upper left and right corners. Press them to navigate left and right.

Title Screen:

The title screen allows you start a new game, continue with your current game, look at the instructions, see how the game is scored, set options, see the credits for the game, and reset the game state if something strange should occur.

New Game / Current Game:

The “New Game” or “Current Game” selection from the title page takes you to the board, where you can play the game.

There are three general areas on the board. In the upper left is the “stack”. This is where stones come into the game. In the upper right are 3-4 shelves on which stones are placed from the stack. On the bottom of the page are the “hands”. Each player has a hand indicating which stones they are collecting. Each hand can have a “skip” on the left if the player has taken a shelf of stones this turn and his/her current score on the right.

The objective of the game is simple: have the highest score. Each play is also simple: during a player’s turn, the player can either select the stack, which reveals a new stone, and place that stone on a shelf. Or take the stones on a shelf. Once a shelf is taken, the player’s turn is skipped until everyone has chosen a shelf.

Simple right? You wish it were so simple! Each player is collecting stones. Where you place each colored stone will influence whether another player wants the stones on the shelf. You have to be careful how you place the stones. If you place all the stones you want on one shelf and another player is collecting those colors, they will have an opportunity to take them before you. Your strategy is to balance a shelves desirability both for you and other players.

Instruction Pages:

Accessed from the title page, this series of pages contain instructions to the game.

Scoring Table:

The scoring table page can be accessed from the title page. There are two ways to score the game based upon life philosophy. There is the “More is Better” approach to life. This type of scoring gives you more points the more stones of the same color you have. The “Balanced is Better” approach to life scores more points the more different colored stones you have.

Options Pages:

The option pages can be accessed from the title page. The first option page allows you to select how many players you want in the game. You can select 2-4 players. It also allows you to select how you want to score the game – “More is Better” or “Balanced is Better”.

The second through fourth option screens allow you select how each computer player will play. A computer player can play Aggressive, Normal, or Conservative. This setting determines how much risk the computer play will take. A computer player can, in addition, play Selfish, Balanced, or Vengeful. A selfish player only cares about improving their own score. A vengeful play cares only about making sure you have a low score. A balanced player will balanced goods moves for helping themselves and good moves to prevent other players from getting good scores.

Credits Page:

We decided to collaborate with Shirley Ng-Benitez, a graphic designer, on the artwork for Life Stones. Here we give her credit. Her webpage can be found here.

Support:

As always, if you have comments, need help, or have a suggestion you can contact us here on the main page or at support@forestkings.com. Enjoy.