BEFORE, THERE WERE THREE FORMS
The Square. The Circle. The Triangle. Every stone and every star was built from them, and then the world forgot. Now the Hexagon, the Moon and the Star hunt the grid, and the three are barely holding together.
Sancta Forma is a puzzle game about moving one shape across a small board without coming apart on the way.
HOW A RITE PLAYS
You are one of the three. Every move absorbs whatever shape you step onto.
Take your own kind and you gain essence and come out clean. Take the wrong kind and you pick up corruption. Carry too much and you're gone. A Square can walk through triangles and a Triangle through squares at no cost. A Circle doesn't get that luxury.
The hunters are the real problem. A Moon kills a Square on contact. A Circle can swallow it and wear it for a turn, but only if the very next thing it eats is another circle. Miss that and the rite is over.
Every cell you take stays taken. Box yourself in and that's a loss too. Most rites get solved by staring at the board for a while before you touch anything.
90+ RITES, ONE REALM AT A TIME
Rites come six to a realm. Clear all six and the next realm opens. The early realms bring in one hunter at a time: hexagons first, then the Moon, then the Star. After The Threshold Rites they start showing up together, and the realms that follow (Ultima Vigilia, Angustia) don't go easy on you.
Each rite opens with a few lines of story. Read them, or just make your first move.
THE FORGE
Build your own rites. Pick a 5×5, 10×10 or 20×20 grid, paint in the forms and the hunters, set your starting shape, and decide how much essence it takes to win. The Forge reads the board as you build and works out what score can actually be reached, so the target you set is one a player can hit.
Hit Walk to play it yourself. If it kills you, go back and fix it. When it's right, export a share code and send it to a friend. They paste it in and they're playing your rite. If you'd rather type a board than paint it, there's a text mode for that.