CORDON

You push out from the edge, draw a line through open space, and try to get it home. Whatever you fence off is yours.

The catch is the Qix. It's the only thing that can protect open ground. So if you bait a drifter into a pocket and close the door behind it, it dies with the ground you just took.

That's the whole game. Every line is a bet on how far you can push before something cuts it.

Things that help

The capture preview draws the exact shape you'd claim if you closed right now, and puts brackets on anything that would die with it. It routes the shortest way home instead of straight ahead, so it answers the question you're actually asking.

Snap Back pulls you out and banks whatever you'd drawn. It's on a cooldown, and the key lights up by itself when you've got a long line out and something is closing on it.

If your line does get cut, you keep the corridor you drew. You lose the enclosure, a life, and your streak. Not everything.

What's in it

Fourteen enemy kinds, one new one per sector. A turret that shuts down a whole lane and won't cross your territory. A leech that eats the border you own. A phantom that walks straight through your ground. A shade that copies your moves on the other side of the arena. Which one turns up when is rolled fresh every run, so the same difficulty twice is two different runs.

Thirteen upgrades. Halve erosion, sprint while something's cornered, turn every third trap back into a shield.

Hunt sectors, where you stop claiming a share of the board and start squeezing the Qix instead, until the ground it can still reach is gone. You can see that ground outlined while you close it.

Three difficulties. Harder is a shorter run, so it shows you more of the game sooner. Each one keeps its own best score.

Controls

• Arrows or WASD to move. You draw whenever you leave your own ground.
• SPACE for Snap Back.
• 1 / 2 / 3 to pick an upgrade or a difficulty.
• R to restart on the same setting.
• M and N for music and sound, four steps down to off. Works on any screen and it's remembered.
• ESC to pause, then 1 to carry on or 2 to give up.
• Gamepad works too. Stick or d-pad to move, face buttons for 1/2/3, bottom button is Snap Back in play, Start pauses, shoulders do volume.