Board grid

The board grid is the set of square tiles that a turn-based room is played on. Every move, range and telegraph is counted in these squares.

How it works#

• King's moves. Distance is counted like a chess king, so a diagonal step costs 1. An area of radius 1 is the 3×3 square around a tile. This matches the eight-facing character sprites and keeps every area a plain square.
• The grid sits inside the painted room. The user said the grid "can fit inside the room, and the outer-edge be decorative". Painted floor outside the board is scenery.
• One unit per tile. Hits, reach and pathing are by tile.
• Exact shapes. Every effect shows its tile set before you commit.
• Blocked squares under small objects get hover or reach feedback, not paint.

The look#

The user gave several rulings on 2 November:

1. The first grid was "too dark coloured and too jarring". It must never be black.
2. The grid must lie on the ground in the room's own camera tilt. The user picked ground squares 24×20, so boards became 21×14 tiles.
3. The latest ruling: "We need an actual grid, with a heavier outest border, not the impression of a grid. How is the player supposed to know what is playable and what is not?"

The result is a continuous 1 px line between all playable squares, and a 2 px border on every edge between playable and blocked ground, holes included. The lines use an overlay blend. It lifts on dark or green ground and presses on pale or warm ground. Claude B draws every line at runtime, and Room building supplies only a ground pass for each room. Blind reviewers checked the border shade several times.

Numbers#

When the tiles shrank, every range was multiplied by 4/3 (see Kit history). Claude A's painted-floor boards count a square as playable when it is mostly floor (board rule cell24x20-floor60-painted1-corners1).

Development#

• The alpha installs A's painted-floor 24×20 geometry (15b5e627e). The lead's audit called the older 21×12 tracker rows obsolete.
• Open: the shell floors were fitted to 24×24 rows, so some painted floor strips now lie outside the playable tiles. A re-fit is the user's call.

See also#

Turn-based encounters · Room assembly · Hearth boards

Sources#

1. 215bfbf88:docs/game-balance/31-turn-based-encounters.mdcopy
2. e7656b980:docs/ops/agent-messages/2026-11-01-claude-a-expeditions-turn-based-rooms.mdcopy
3. b89f778c2:src/main-game/alpha/public/encounter/src/skills/turns/.pinned/rooms/src/expeditions/tactics/compose.jscopy
4. docs/ops/agent-messages/2026-11-02-lead-full-project-reconciliation-audit.md (working copy, not in Git)