Lapilli Stones is finished in the sense that matters — the game is complete, and every update below is free to anyone who owns it. This page is where the next chapters get written down — and where the ones already built are marked as such. Dates are deliberately absent; the work is done when it's good.
Already Landed
Built, in testing now
The companion book, inside the app. Over a hundred and sixty pages on the game — its rules, its shapes, its strategy, and the legend it comes wrapped in — with a contents menu, a page slider, and a memory for where you stopped reading. No purchase, no code, no catch: if you own the game, you own the book.
Every game written down. Games are recorded as they're played, in a plain notation you can save, export, and send to another player. Every game recorded from here on becomes part of your history for what follows.
First move or second, in your record. The record knows who you played, under which rules, and now whether you opened the game or answered it — because that, not the colour of the stones, is where most players find their weakness.
Rematch, with the first move swapped. When an online match ends, one tap starts a new one against the same player — and whoever answered last game opens the next, the book's own correspondence custom.
Four opponents, named like a guild. Novice, Apprentice, Journeyman, Artisan — a new middle rung, real thinking time for the top one, and every rung measured against its neighbours so "harder" means harder. Openings vary from game to game now, two mistakes testers caught in real play are fixed and pinned as permanent tests, and the whole ladder was scored against several hundred rated games by strong human players. Meet the four.
Other boards, other stones — mix them as you like. A proper Go board with its nine star points, black and white stones for those who read diagrams that way, and any combination you please — the board and the stones are separate choices, not bundled sets.
A computer that sees captures coming. The opponents used to count captures already made, but had no notion of one about to happen — neither a pair of theirs standing in a half-closed bracket, nor one of yours ready to be taken. Both are visible now, under every rule set, and the reflexes that answer a threat will reach for a capture when a capture is the better answer. Found by two players who said the same thing in different words.
Walk back through a finished game. Every game you finish is kept on your device, and Your Games in Settings opens any of them move by move, with the computer's read of each position beside you — and, on request, what the strongest opponent would have played. "I lost" becomes "I lost here."
A mirror for your play. The same judge that powers the computer opponents reads back through your recorded games and charts the mistakes you repeat — the ignored threat that cost the game, the capture left on the table — and whether they're fading as you improve. Only what the record proves is counted, and every flagged move opens on the board so you can check the claim yourself. All of it on your device; your games are read by your own machine and no one else's.
The Practice Board. A board with two bowls beside it: arrange any position freely, or switch to Play and work it out with captures and wins live. The book's problems open here on a real board with your solutions remembered, and the hint tells you not just where but why, in the language the book teaches — in games too, with a switch to turn the explanations on. See the manual for all of it in pictures.
Your games, on all your devices. The archive now travels through your own iCloud: a game finished on the phone appears in Your Games on the Mac, and the mirror reads your whole history instead of one device's slice. Same promise as ever — we run no servers and never see a move.
Your matches, on the board's edge. Correspondence games moved out of the settings and onto the main screen — a slim strip of name-chips with a glowing dot for your move, so seeing whose turn it is never costs a tap. (A tester's suggestion, from the family that tests everything.)
Study Your Games
After that
A proper end to a game. The final board, the captures, the count of moves — and the things you actually want next: rematch, review, export.
A word after the game. Correspondence play deserves the courtesies of the post: a way to say good game, well played, thank you when a match ends, chosen from a short list and sent with your last move. Not a chat — a handful of civil things to say to someone you may never meet, in a game whose own etiquette chapter is about announcing your threats aloud.
Ideas are welcome and often become entries on this page. Nearly every improvement in the game so far started as a message from someone playing it — write to lapilli-stones@proton.me.