Lantern Den Cubs

A tiny board, four animals a side, and one rule that changes everything: a piece you capture does not leave the game. It flips over, lands in your tray, and comes back down on any empty square as your own. The den is three columns wide and four rows tall. Twelve squares. Each side starts with a Lion, a Giraffe, an Elephant and a Cub, and every one of them steps exactly one square at a time. The Lion walks in all eight directions, the Giraffe only straight, the Elephant only on the diagonals, and the Cub plods one square forward until it reaches the far rank and grows into a Hound. Take a Hound and it comes back to your tray as a Cub again. Because nothing is ever removed, the board never simplifies. Trades do not calm the position down, they hand the other side fresh material to set down wherever it hurts most. Twelve squares turn out to be a very deep place. There are two ways to win. Take the enemy Lion, or walk your own Lion onto the far home rank and survive there until your next turn begins. A Lion that strolls in unguarded is simply taken instead. If the same position appears four times, the match is drawn. Three opponents wait in the den. Cubling plays any legal move it fancies. Prowler looks three plies ahead. The Den Elder runs a six-ply alpha-beta search with a table of positions it has already seen, and it is genuinely hard to beat. WHAT IS INSIDE - A full match against a real search opponent on a board you can read at a glance - Hands sit as trays above and below the board, with every legal drop lit up - Captured pieces flip over as they travel to the taker tray - A red pulse on any Lion that can be taken this turn, switchable - Records: wins by capture against wins by walk-in, average turns, drops played - Ten den honours to light - Choose who opens every match, or let it alternate - An illustrated explainer for every animal, the drop rule and both win conditions COMPLETELY OFFLINE No internet connection is used or needed. No ads, ever. No sound at all: the whole game speaks in colour, motion and an optional short haptic tap, so it is at home on a bus, in a waiting room or late at night. Nothing is collected and nothing is uploaded. Your records live on your own device and survive a restart. Warm lantern light, cream tokens, a deep brown den, and twelve squares that never stop asking questions. Sit down and play a quick one.