Glossary

Complete reference of terms and concepts for abstract strategy board game development.

Game Structure

Active Player: The player whose turn it currently is and who may perform moves.
Board: The spatial game area composed of squares where pieces can be placed.
First Player: The player designated to take the first turn when a match begins.
Game: The complete system consisting of locations (board and hands) and pieces with their attributes.
Hand: A player’s private reserve area for holding pieces not currently on the board.
Inactive Player: The player who is not currently taking their turn.
Location: Any place where a piece can exist: the board, first player’s hand, or second player’s hand.
Match: A gaming session between two players using the game system.
Second Player: The player designated to take the second turn.
Square: An individual position on the board that can contain at most one piece or be empty.
Turn: The period during which the active player may perform their move.

Name: The piece’s functional identity (king, rook, pawn, etc.).
Piece: A game component with four fundamental attributes: side, name, state, and style.
Side: Which player controls the piece (first player or second player).
State: The piece’s current condition (normal, enhanced, or diminished).
Style: The rule system and tradition governing the piece’s behavior.

Action: A single, indivisible transformation during move execution.
Capture: An action resulting in a piece moving from the board to a player’s hand.
Displacement: Moving a piece between locations (board-to-board, board-to-hand, hand-to-board).
Legal Move: A pseudo-legal move that additionally satisfies all game-specific rules and contextual constraints.
Move: What the active player performs during their turn, potentially consisting of multiple atomic actions.
Mutation: Changing one or more piece attributes (side, name, state, or style) without necessarily changing location.
Placement: Moving a piece from a player’s hand to the board.
Protocol-Valid Move: A move that respects the fundamental invariants of the Game Protocol without regard to specific game rules.
Pseudo-Legal Move: A protocol-valid move that additionally respects basic movement rules and piece behavior patterns.

Conservation Principle: The total number of pieces across all locations must remain constant throughout the match.
Location Accessibility: The access control system where board locations are publicly accessible to the active player, while hand locations are privately accessible only to their respective owners.
Location Exclusivity: The constraint that each piece occupies exactly one location at any given time.
Rule-Agnostic: Independent of specific game mechanics, applicable across different game systems.
Square Occupancy: The constraint that each board square contains at most one piece.

Derived Piece: A piece using the opponent’s native style system, typically marked with derivation indicators.
Enhanced State: Piece state with improved capabilities, often from promotion (represented with + prefix).
Foreign Piece: A piece using a style system different from its controlling player’s native style.
Native Piece: A piece using its controlling player’s default style system.
Normal State: Standard piece state without modifications (no prefix modifier).
Diminished State: Piece state with reduced capabilities or special vulnerabilities (represented with - prefix).
Terminal Piece: A piece whose capture or checkmate results in immediate game termination for the controlling player. In most chess-style games, this is typically the King, though some variants may feature multiple terminal pieces or different terminal piece types.

Cross-Style: Scenarios where different players use different game systems or where pieces from different traditions coexist.
Derivation Marker: Notation element (e.g., ' suffix) indicating a piece’s style differs from its controlling player’s native style.
State Modifier: Notation element (prefix + or -) indicating enhanced or diminished piece states.