Krok

Starting up Krok, you’ll see a screen like this, especially if you’re connected to Apple’s Game Center.

At the top left, you’ll see a life preserver icon, tapping or clicking on that will bring you to this page. New features, tips, and rules for Krok are found on this page.

Play until Score: 50, 100, 150, or 200
You have four choices to play up to. Each choice, if played on Game Center, has its own leader board on Game Center. When one player has reached or beat the target score, he is the winner. If two or more players have done this in a round, the game goes into “sudden death.” Sudden death gives each player one disk per round until someone has the most points. The paid OS X game gives players access to each option. The free iOS game gives you access to 50 points until you’ve purchased “Krok Full Game.”

Disks per Player: 3, 6, 9, or 12
This is how many disks each player starts with each round. The normal crokinole gives each player 6 disks for 4 players or 12 disks for 2 players. The paid OS X game gives players access to each option. The free iOS game gives you access to 3 disks until you’ve purchased “Krok Full Game.”

Black Player: No, or Yes
Blue Player: No, or Yes
Green Player: No, or Yes
Red Player: No, or Yes
If you are going to play on the local device only, rather than on Game Center, you need to pick the colour of the disks to be played. Black plays across from Green and Blue plays across from Red. Unlike the normal crokinole game, the four player game doesn’t put the players into to two teams.

Continue Game!
You will see this option if you’ve played Krok (but not on Game Center) before. While you play on the local device, the state of the game is saved so you can continue it at anytime.

Start Game!
This will start a new game on the local device. The saved game will be replaced. Which players, disks, and score are determined from the options above.

Play on Game Center!
Find opponents on Game Center. Invite friends from across the world to play with you.
If you’ve played Game Center games before, this is old hat. Just find someone to play with or invite a friend.

Playing Krok

This is the start of a basic 4 player game on an iPhone 5. The target score is 50 and each player has 3 disks. Black starts first.

At the top left is a left pointing arrow. Tapping (or clicking) on this arrow will leave the game and return to the “Krok Game Setup” page. You don’t have to worry about losing the current game as it is continually being saved.

Your goal is to get your disks as close to the centre circle as you can. If you get your puck in the centre circle, you score 20 points and your disk is placed outside of the green circle. If there are no other disks in the scoring area or if all the disks are the same colour, you are free to shoot your disk as you wish. However, if there is a disk of a different colour, your shot disk must hit a different colour before hitting any other disk. Thus, if you are shooting black disks and there is a green disk in the scoring area already and you hit your own black disk before hitting a green disk, both your shot disk and the black disks you hit are taken off the scoring area.

The Board
The board has several areas.
The yellow centre circle is worth 20 points. Scoring a disk in there will give you 20 points and it will move your disk to outside of the board.

The next circle is the 15 point scoring area. The 15 point circle has 8 pegs guarding the inside of the circle. Outside of that circle is the 10 point scoring area. Outside of the 10 point circle is the 5 point scoring area. The white circle is the zero scoring area. Disks touching that circle are removed to the gutter. The gutter is the outside green circle. Disks in the gutter are scoreless.

Disks that touch the outside wall of the green circle are scoreless, even if they bounce back into the scoring area. After the disks have stopped moving, scoreless disks are moved to the gutter.

The Controls

The controls are very simple.

The white circle under your disk is used to move the disk within your starting area, your coloured quarter of the 5 point scoring area.

The other white circle is used to aim your shot.

The bar at the bottom of the screen is used for the power of your shot. Stretching the blue box to the right will turn it purple then red. The redder the bar the more powerful the shot.

When you’ve started the power of your shot, you have 2 seconds to select your power before your time runs out. If your time runs out, the shot will be taken with some random power added to or removed from it.

Playing Krok on Game Center

Krok Multiplayer Setup
When you’ve been matched up with other players, you are shown the scene above. If you have access to more than a target score of 50 points or disks per player more than 3, you can select them. Only one of the players needs to have the full game access for everybody to play with the other options. Thus, if you haven’t bought the full game yet but your friend has, your friend can select the other options for you for this game.

The row of coloured disks is where you select your colour. Once a player has selected a colour, that colour is removed from your options.

Above, Minion Jedi, has picked the green disk.

When you are ready to start the game, tap on “Ready!” By the little board image over Minion Jedi’s photo, you can see that he is already ready.

Game play is just like in the normal game. However, you can see your opponents’ name on the board. You are “Me” in the black and “Minion Jedi” is in the green.

That’s about it for the game. Have fun!

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Click here for Mac App Store

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