Clesto Notation

For those that want to write down the moves the Clesto notation system works very similar to the one used in Chess. It is done automatically when playing online.

• Make sure that the orange player has the side with the square a1 at bottom left (same as white in Chess). Orange player always start.
• Each animal is represented by their rank number (same for all languages).
• If an attack was done, write x directly after the number (same as capturing in Chess).
• If you declare animals as hungry, add a + at the end for each declaration.
• If an animal starves, add an x at the end.

Examples

1 1g4 5d7

Explanation: In the first round the orange player moved their Rat[1] to square g4 and then the opponent moved their Leopard[5] to d7.

Example of an opening leading to a trade of Rat[1] for Leopard[5]:

1 1g4 5d7
2 1g5 5d6
3 1g6++ 8xg6x

Clesto notation can also be written on a single line, like this:

1 1g4 5d7 2 1g5 5d6 3 1g6++ 8xg6x

Board state

How to write the board state in a simple way for both humans to understand and computers to parse?

Simply write all the positions of the animals separated by comma, starting with the top row (a9) and going right row by row. Use lowercase for yellow animals and uppercase for orange animals.

For example, this is the board state in the beginning of the game:

7a6,6g9,4b8,2f8,1a7,5c7,3e7,8g7,8A3,3C3,5E3,1G3,2B2,4F2,6A1,7G1

Omitting round numbers

The round numbers can be omitted if the board state is written.

The moves of the orange player is always stated first on each notation line so if the first move by the orange player is omitted, replace their move by three dots (...).

Example of notation using board state and omitting round numbers showing a good move by orange in the middle of a game:

Board state: 7d7, 8g7, 5A6, 3f6, 1G5
… 7d6
1g6+++ 7xa6xx