Game Tome

Infinity Codex is played through cards, Locations, ownership, control, and chains of effects. The card’s wording determines what it can affect; its timing and the current game state determine when it can act. Select a source card, inspect its effect, choose legal targets, then resolve the loaded function.

This edition documents the local Great Engine with Interrupter build reviewed on 20 September 2026. The live website may run an earlier upload. It describes observed implementation, not new rules or permission to bypass a card’s restrictions. Known implementation gaps are labelled explicitly.

The site’s Cypherdex question-answering guide explains rules. Player 1 AI and Player 2 AI are separate opponents that take game actions. Turning on the guide does not turn on an opponent.

Engine reference: ENGINE_RULES, renderUnsafe

Use the arena’s Cypher Menu to reach its import controls, or use the Import button. Loading a deck and starting a game are separate actions. Wait for the public prebuilt list and canonical card data to load.

Enable the opponent before pressing Start Game. Player 2’s automatic deck preload runs only before the game starts and only if that seat has no deck. The toggle may remember its previous setting, so inspect its label and the Event Log rather than assuming a deck loaded.

After a local file or website update, preserve any game you need before reloading. If the interface appears older than the uploaded file, a hard refresh or a private window can help distinguish cached code from a rules problem.

1. Open Import. Set the deck player to Player 1. Choose an entry under Prebuilt Test Deck and press Load Prebuilt Deck. Read the validation output; a chosen dropdown entry alone is not a loaded deck.
2. Turn Player 2 AI On while still in setup. Open the Event Log and look for “AI opponent loaded a valid public deck for Player 2.” “Could not preload” or an incomplete-load message means setup is not ready.
3. If automatic preload fails, select Player 2 in the importer, load a valid prebuilt manually, and verify its deck before starting. Player 1 AI can also be enabled, but its toggle does not perform the Player 2 preload routine.
4. In Starting Setup, select each player and check their Starting Force and Starting Location. Choose Creative, Structured, or Codex Standard. Press Start Game.
5. Use Power, then Creation, then End Turn. Select manifested cards to inspect their legal effects. Follow the Effect indicator, Effect Target selector, Resolve Effect button, and Event Log.

Engine reference: loadDatabaseDeck, preloadConstrainedOpponentDeck, toggleConstrainedOpponent, startGame

A validated deck contains exactly 50 Power cards and exactly 50 Creation cards, plus 1–10 starting Location cards. The Power Deck must contain at least one Force. Starting Locations are a separate group; do not count them as the 50 Creation cards.

The configured copy limits are one Force of a given record name, up to five copies of an Element or Creation of a given record name, and one copy for a card identified as Unique. Use the importer’s validation messages to check actual classification and copy limits.

Prebuilt Test Deck → Load Prebuilt Deck retrieves a public deck. Load Decker JSON imports the pasted deck export for the selected player. The Decker’s active-deck route is another import path; verify the correct seat and validation after using it. Merely opening Decker or selecting a deck does not start a match.

Card families come from the Archetype table. Force, Element and Colour are Power-card archetypes. Location has its own family. Organism, Object, Technology, Vehicle, Landmark, Compound, Phenomena, Event, Plant and Secondary Color are currently classified as Creations. Primary/Secondary/Triary alignments are separate from these families.

Engine reference: validateDecks, copyLimitFor, loadActiveDeckIntoCurrentSession, cardFamilyOf

Start Game validates every loaded player’s deck, shuffles each deck once, manifests the chosen starting Force and starting Location, and leaves the other starting Locations in that player’s hand. The starting Force is removed from the shuffled Power Deck. Starting setup does not charge the normal later Location manifestation cost.

The starting Force establishes the player’s initial alignment. The arena supports 24 Location anchors. Locations manifested later require a free anchor; a full Location layout can therefore prevent that effect from completing.

The match begins in the start state with the first loaded player active. There is no ordinary opening Creation-hand draw in this start routine: the Creation Phase supplies the normal draw. In an online room, both players’ decks must be loaded before starting.

Engine reference: startGame, ARENA, manifestLocation

Power: from the start state, press Power once. The top Power card is manifested. In Structured/Standard, a controlled Location is required for placement. The phase routine handles an empty Power Deck; it is not the Creation-deck-empty victory.

Creation: after the Power Phase, press Creation once. The top Creation card is drawn into the active player’s hand. This is also the phase for normal cost-bearing hand manifestations in Structured and Codex Standard.

During the appropriate phase, use manifested cards and resolve their valid effects. Automatic timings can create additional pending functions or response windows. The absence of legal targets is a valid reason for a function to be skipped.

End Turn: finish the Creation Phase, settle required pending cost/effect steps, then press End Turn. The engine dispatches end-of-phase and end-of-turn timings, expires applicable temporary effects, moves to the next loaded player, resets movement counters, and processes beginning-turn timings. The displayed turn number advances when play cycles back to the first player.

Engine reference: enterPowerPhase, enterCreationPhase, endTurn

Creative relaxes the assisted placement, cost, and movement checks used by the other modes, and enables Cypher Vision. It remains useful for testing wording, but is not evidence that a play is legal in Standard. Deck validation still occurs when starting.

Structured enables the assisted rules: cost-bearing Creations from hand are manifested during Creation, their cost choices must be completed, legal controlled destinations matter, and normal movement is restricted. Check the card’s timing and current state before activating.

Codex Standard uses those assisted checks and additionally checks a normally manifested Creation’s alignment against Forces the player controls. The current check accepts a matching canonical alignment from the card’s alignment fields.

The current local AI in Creative and Structured retains a 32-action safety cap and its completed-action filter. Codex Standard bypasses those artificial AI limits. This does not remove card costs, once-per timing, ownership/control checks, or target legality. Interrupter handling consumes no normal AI action allowance in any mode.

Engine reference: rulesAssistEnabled, manifestSelected, runConstrainedOpponentStep, constrainedOpponentLegalActions

Power Deck and Creation Deck are ordered piles. Hand contains drawn/fetched cards and unused starting Locations. The manifested table contains cards in play; Locations have their own anchor collection. Exile is a separate pile and may be referenced by card wording.

Owner and controller are different. Control effects change who may use a card and who counts it toward controlled-card victory. They do not change its owner. Leaving play restores owner control through the engine’s cleanup path.

Victory: one player controls at least 100 manifested cards classified canonically as Creations. Power cards and Locations are not Creations merely because they are manifested. A total of 143 cards across both players and all families is not automatically a win.

Victory also occurs when a loaded player’s Creation Deck is empty. In this implementation the player who empties that deck wins; do not substitute the losing-by-deck-out convention from other games. The 100-Creations check is evaluated first. If multiple Creation Decks are empty, the engine records those players together.

Player Records statistics are distinct from the in-arena victory announcement. The reporting code found in the site backup records completed online matches. A local AI victory is not proof that account statistics were submitted; that reporting path still needs separate verification.

Engine reference: checkWinCondition, restoreOwnerControlWhenLeavingPlay, multiplayerSnapshot

Card chooses the source or selected card. Hovering/selecting also shows its physical record and mechanical text. Location chooses a destination, source pile, or special position depending on the loaded operation. Effect Target chooses a legal card, deck, response target, or OR choice.

Activate loads the selected manifested card’s effect. Auto Activate On may load it when you select a valid manifested card. The floating Effect indicator names the current base operation, not every operation on the card. Resolve Effect commits the loaded function; successive functions can change the indicator and available selectors.

Manifest, Move, Attach, Unattach, Destroy, Exile, Take to Hand and Expend are direct selected-card controls. These are not interchangeable with activating a printed effect that has its own target wording. For example, a direct Attach acts on the selected card, while a two-target Attach effect can attach one chosen Creation to another.

Cancel Effect cancels the loaded effect chain through the normal cancellation path. Close interrupter only dismisses the popup. The two buttons have different jobs. Opening/closing a view, hovering a card, or changing the sound display does not itself resolve an effect.

Cypher provides Chat, Display, Sound and Menu views. Use the game’s Event Log to read source names, deck-load confirmation, skipped targets, response results, costs and victory messages. A console or account Records page is not a substitute for that match log.

Engine reference: activateSelected, resolveLoadedEffect, cancelLoadedEffect, renderUnsafe

Creation Cost, Composition and Secondary Composition supply Element-state cost slots. The payment interface reuses the Card, Location and Effect Target selectors for those slots. Read their current labels; while paying, they are not ordinary movement/target menus.

Choose distinct controlled Elements in the required states, then use Expend to commit the selected payment. Paying Elements are removed from play, set to gas, and sent to the bottom of their appropriate Power Deck. Printed E: state attachment tokens can affect how expended Elements are staged as part of the cost mechanism.

The starting Location follows setup behavior. Later Locations manifested from hand participate in the added cost behavior under Structured and Standard. Effects that manifest cards use their own resolver and register the corresponding cost entry; do not assume an effect automatically waives all costs.

If a cost or destination is unavailable, read the log and current payment labels. Do not repeatedly press Activate expecting a missing Element to appear. Activating an Element by an effect can rearm its material state through the existing activation behavior.

Engine reference: creationCostSlots, armManifestedCreation, expendElementForManifestCost, registerManifestCost

Read an effect as source → operation → quantity → target filters → source position → destination → timing/duration. “This Location,” an owner’s deck, an opponent’s hand, a phenotype, and an alignment each narrow what is legal; a displayed card name alone does not override them.

Effects and their functions are resolved in their compiled order. AND/THEN can produce successive functions; OR presents a choice in Effect Target. Select the offered function rather than trying to execute both alternatives. Multi-card counts may ask for the next target; “all” can produce a batch with separate responses.

A pronoun such as “it” is not a promise that an arbitrary sentence will preserve a target through every operation. Follow the current indicator and legal-target list. Test the exact wording against the compiler before treating a new chain formulation as supported.

With no legal targets, the arming path may log that a function activated and resolved with no legal target, then advance the chain. This does not mean an effect performed a mutation on an invalid card. An unsupported/manual interpretation message is a different case and needs wording review.

The log, effect number/function number, current indicator and highlighted card are the main tools for comparing two cards with similar wording. Use the full source text and game state when reporting a mismatch.

Engine reference: compileEffectChain, armCardEffect, advanceEffectChain, chooseEffectFunction

When a targeted effect reaches a response check, the target may offer Negate, Deflect, Reflect, Copy or a When Targeted response. The controlling player chooses the offered response or Pass. The original function is suspended while a new response resolves; the latest response finishes before its parent resumes.

For redirection, choose a legal replacement target. A successful response stops the AI’s search. In the current local build the AI tries the offered options and available redirect targets, then selects Pass if none succeeds. Response choices remain subject to the engine’s legal-target checks.

The popup is non-modal: it does not make the rest of the page inert. Close interrupter is available even while waiting for an AI. After 10 seconds without interaction inside the popup it closes automatically. This is a display timeout, NOT an automatic Pass, cancellation, or successful resolution.

Closing preserves pending effects and the response stack. Normal game rules may still require a pending effect to be settled before advancing. Resolve Effect can reopen a pending response chooser. Cancel Effect explicitly cancels through the game’s normal cancellation control.

The AI continues processing independently of popup visibility. A genuinely stalled unchanged response is not retried endlessly; changes to its tracked legal state allow another attempt. This safeguard is not a guarantee that every unusual response chain is implemented.

Engine reference: chooseInterruptResponse, runInterruptAI, renderInterruptPopup, finishInterruptedEffect

The natural Attach/Unattach allowance is distinct from an Attach effect. For a normal attachment use the selected card and a legal host at the same Location; the configured natural allowance is one action per turn. Printed effect targeting can impose its own type and position filters.

Attached cards and their host form a connected moving entity: moving a member synchronizes the attached entity’s Location. Entangle links source and target as a symbiotic group. Unattach and Unentangle remove the relevant relationship; they do not destroy the cards.

Normal assisted movement is limited to one move per turn and does not allow a newly manifested Creation’s ordinary move that turn. Effects use their own movement rules and legal destinations. Location adjacency and the bridge are special arena relationships, not arbitrary permissions to target everywhere.

Known wording issue: “Attach 1 Creation to 1 Creation” is currently classified as single-target Attach by the adapter because Creation is a modifier. For this build use and test explicit target wording such as “Attach 1 target Creation to 1 target Creation.” The intended two-target UI selects the attachment card first and its host second. The parser was not changed for this Tome.

Engine reference: setPendingTarget, attachSelected, syncAttachmentLocations, entangleCards, processorPlanForArena

Trigger, condition and duration are separate concepts. A trigger starts a check (for example When Targeted); a condition determines availability (for example 1 per Turn); a duration determines when an ongoing relation ends (for example until end of turn). A card can have more than one of these roles.

The engine reads Timing table records and dispatches events for phase boundaries, turn boundaries, manifestation, targeting, movement, destruction, exile, activation and attachment. The exact wording must resolve to a supported timing contract; being present in the table does not prove that every possible combination is executable.

READY/EXPENDED and the card’s printed timing govern reuse. “1 per Turn” does not mean continuously reusable within the same turn. An explicit Activate effect uses the engine’s rearming path; it is different from clicking Activate on a card whose allowance is already spent.

Copied effects persist until the copied bearer leaves play, the game ends or resets, unless an explicit supported duration shortens that lifetime. Temporary control has its own return/expiry handling. Range is currently a staged targeting relation; do not infer that every numeric distance phrase or duration is complete.

Engine reference: loadTimingRegistry, isEffectReady, dispatchTimingWindows, removeExpiredTemporaryCopies

Use the multiplayer controls to create, join or observe a room. A room has host/guest seat permissions; observers cannot submit game actions. The host may run an unoccupied AI seat but must not take over a human guest.

Hands and decks are private zones. Effects such as Reveal and Shuffle use scoped selectors for hidden cards or piles. Public descriptions of the board do not entitle either a human or a question-answering assistant to invent or expose private deck contents.

Local autosave, a public prebuilt deck, an online match snapshot and Player Records are different systems. A victory banner establishes the local result; online statistics depend on completing and submitting an online match. This Tome does not claim to repair missing account records.

Engine reference: canChooseResponse, submitMultiplayerState, privateDisplayPlayer

No selectable targets: check card family, source pile, controller, Location, isolation and timing. A Force is not a Creation. A card in hand is not manifested. A Location has its own classification. A failed target check can be correct behavior.

AI does nothing at setup: check that its toggle says On, read the deck-load confirmation in the Event Log, and verify both decks. Turn Player 2 AI on before starting if you want its automatic preload.

An interrupter disappears: it may have been closed or reached its 10-second display timeout. Check the loaded Effect indicator. Closing is not Pass. A disabled phase button may reflect an unsettled effect rather than the popup blocking the screen.

An old interface remains after upload: compare the actual loaded build. A private window or hard refresh can isolate stale browser cache. This local Tome includes fixes that an older live arena may not yet contain.

A registered effect word has no documented execution path: use its dictionary status below. Do not use a log saying “resolved” alone as proof that the intended board change occurred.

Engine reference: armCardEffect, renderInterruptPopup, preloadConstrainedOpponentDeck

The current Alignment table contains Signal, Quantity, Space, Time, Creation, Energy, Motion, Frequency, Pressure, Chaos, Structure, Nature, Belief, Power and Destruction. This replaces the old Tome’s fixed “Thirteen Forces” heading. Alignment is not the same as a Creation’s material-state cost.

Primary, Secondary and Triary alignment slots contribute separate audio modulations in the sound-upgraded local arena. Manifest/Move use an alignment recording; effect activation uses an operation recording. Audio does not establish legality, pay costs, or prove an effect resolved.

Sound On/Off controls playback. Missing WAV assets or cross-origin audio restrictions can make a valid effect silent. Signal changes duration/staccato by slot; Structure adds location call/response or the one-second effect-sound cutoff. These are audio behaviors, not effect-resolution delays.

Engine reference: arenaAudioAlignments, queueArenaSoundPlayback

Use this edition’s stable section IDs as citations. Answer from the retrieved passage, distinguish implemented behavior from registered/execution-gap entries, and say when the requested wording is not verified. Do not infer full support from the Effects table name alone.

Ask for the source card text, active mode, phase, current pending function and relevant public targets when those determine legality. Never invent private deck contents. The site guide provides explanation and navigation; this Tome grants it no authority to press gameplay buttons or alter an opponent.

All rule and effect text is present in the HTML, even inside closed sections. tome-rules.json and tome-rules.md provide the same material for retrieval. The optional site bridge supplies relevant sections to an existing guide and renders topic links. It does not add a hosted language-model endpoint or modify in-game AI.

This edition includes local changes that may not be live. Check the source manifest before diagnosing a discrepancy. Table descriptions and engine behavior can disagree; the effect entries call out known cases rather than silently redefining either.

Engine reference: Tome integration contract