Crane Moat Stances

Crane Moat Stances is a quiet duel on a five by five court beside an indigo moat. Four students and one master stand on each home row, the master under the temple arch in the centre. Nothing on that board has a move of its own. Your options come from cards. Five stance cards are dealt from a deck of sixteen: two to you, two to the far side, one to the side slot beside the board. On your turn you pick one of your two cards, move any one of your pieces by one of the offsets printed on it, and then the card you used rotates into the side slot while the card waiting there joins your hand. After the far side takes their turn, the card you just played is theirs. Every move you take is a move you hand over. TWO WAYS TO WIN Way of the Stone: capture the enemy master. Way of the Stream: walk your own master onto the arch square their master started on. Both are always live, so an attack that ignores the arch can lose the match by the back door. THE SIXTEEN STANCES Tiger, Dragon, Frog, Rabbit, Crab, Elephant, Goose, Rooster, Monkey, Mantis, Horse, Ox, Crane, Boar, Eel and Cobra. Each is drawn as a small five by five diagram: the marked cell is your piece, the vermilion dots are where it may go. Cards read mirrored for the far side, so the same offsets carry them the other way. AN OPPONENT THAT WATCHES THE HAND-OFF Three settings. Calm plays a legal stance at random and is a gentle place to learn. Steady looks one turn ahead. Sharp searches two turns deep and weighs material, master safety, the run at the far arch, board control and, above all, the value of the card it is about to lend you. Park a strong card in the slot against Sharp and it will notice. FIVE TABS Play: the full match with both hands, the side slot and both arches on screen. Tap a card to light up every square it opens for every piece, tap a piece to narrow it down, and watch the spent card rotate across so the hand-off is impossible to miss. Stats: matches, win rate, wins split by stone and by stream, average turns, fastest win and your favourite stance. Levels: opponent strength, who opens, and whether the five cards are drawn fresh or fixed to a gentle teaching set. How: an illustrated explainer of the hand-off, the two win conditions, the forced pass and all sixteen diagrams. Awards: ten seals stamped from your own ledger. BUILT TO STAY OUT OF THE WAY Completely offline. No internet permission, no accounts, no ads, no analytics, no tracking and no in-app purchases. There is no sound at all: feedback is visual, with an optional light haptic tap you can switch off. Portrait only, drawn entirely with vector graphics in a woodblock palette of indigo, paper white and vermilion. Your progress is stored on your device and survives closing the app. No timers, no pressure, no chance beyond the opening deal. Just five squares by five, sixteen stances, and the small cruelty of arming your opponent with the move you liked best.