When you begin Fathom, you are presented with a pool of colored tiles. Each player is given a particular player color. At the top of the pool are three pots of active fill colors- these pots are always the colors in use for the present turn.
Your Player Section
Your player color is recorded on the short turn indicator bar on one of the player sections around the pool. Clicking in the player section
will bring up a player scroll which reports how what percentage of the pool you control and how close you are to your goal. Each player has two indicator bars in his player section: the turn indicator bar and the fill bar. The turn indicator bar will light up when it is that player’s turn. The fill bar records how much of the pool has been filled up with the player’s player color. Next to the fill bar are three pots of color- these are the inactive fill colors which will come into play with your next turn.
Colors: Choosing and Using
At the start of the game, you will possess only one tile in your player color. At the top of the screen will be three active fill colors from which to choose. Look at the tiles that are touching (adjacent to) your first player color tile. These adjacent tiles are target tiles, because they are the targets that set off the wave of color that sweeps through as far as it can go.
Choose a fill color by clicking on one of the three active fill color pots at the top. A small indicator light will appear below the color pot that has been chosen.
Clicking on a target tile will fill that tile with a chosen fill color. The target tile will turn that fill color before converting to your player color, thus becoming one of your player tiles.
As the target tile turns the fill color, the fill color will spill into any tile adjacent to the target tile that is either the target color (the color of the target tile) or the fill color. The wave of filling and changing will continue until the color wave has swept through. At the end of your turn, every adjacent target color tile and fill color tile will have been swept by your color. The turn counter shrinks as you use up available turns. In multiplayer mode, if no player has won by the time the turns are exhausted, the player with the highest percentile at the end of all turns wins.
With your next turn, you may begin at any of your player tiles- any tile that is your player color- and choose any target tile adjacent to that player tile.
You can also take tiles by surrounding them- any tile that is surrounded completely will be converted to the player color of the sweep.
Strategy Tip: Look for the largest contiguous areas of a color, because these will bring the most tiles into your holdings if swept through. Remember that the fill color will be sweeping through the target color looking to sweep as far into that color tile or any tile of the fill color as possible.
Choose your target tile wisely. Think ahead- how far will the fill color go? Look carefully at which tiles are contiguous and for areas that appear to be contiguous but are actually cut off by tiles of a different color. Don’t get trapped setting off what looks to be a long, valuable wave but turns out to be an expensively short one.
To begin to play Fathom, pull down (click on) the Game Menu. Click on the options to set Fathom as you prefer:
For non-network play, you may play Fathom either Solitaire or Multiplayer:
· Solo - flying solo
· Multiplayer - playing against the computer, hotseat, or over network
For network play, you may either host or join a network game of Fathom.
