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:
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.
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.
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.