Turn-Based Tactics is a deterministic browser tactics game played on an original 5-by-4 board where one 6-health player unit faces a 2-health Scout and a 4-health Guard, and a disclosed ten-action route finishes the fight with 5 health remaining for exactly 1,000 points. The board is fixed: two wall cells divide the center, two cover cells reduce incoming damage from 2 to 1, and every priority and movement rule is hard-coded into the same fixture that the independent verification oracle replays. There are no dice rolls, no shuffled maps, no hidden percentages, and no online opponents, and pressing Restart always returns the player to the identical tactical problem. Each turn splits into a Move phase and an Attack phase. In Move, the player walks one orthogonal cell or waits. In Attack, the player strikes one adjacent living enemy or waits. After the attack phase, every living enemy resolves exactly one deterministic action: an adjacent enemy attacks, and otherwise it moves toward the player using a horizontal-before-vertical tie priority when that move is legal.
Why a Deterministic Browser Tactics Game Exists
Most browser tactics games blend real-time clocks, randomized enemy behavior, microtransaction timers, and procedurally shuffled maps. That mix can be exciting, but it also means every mistake is partially the luck of the draw. Turn-Based Tactics is a different proposition. The board, the unit health totals, the wall and cover cells, the Manhattan movement rules, and the enemy horizontal-first pursuit priority are all locked into a single authored fixture. An independent oracle owns its own literal terrain, unit data, movement rules, cover calculation, enemy priority, and action sequences, and it tests the same ten-action victory and twelve-action defeat against the product reducer. That structure turns a browser session into something closer to a logic puzzle than a live battle. A reader who wants to know whether they could have done better after a loss can replay the same opening by hitting Restart, and the result of any input is fully explainable from the rules.
The deterministic design also removes a specific category of frustration: invalid input cannot quietly damage a run. The product reducer rejects movement off the board, through walls, onto occupied cells, in the wrong phase, or beyond Manhattan range one, and those rejections are atomic no-ops. Completion and defeat are frozen states, so extra clicks or key presses cannot move units, change health, alter phase, change score, or flip the result. Verification does not depend on the product explaining itself; it depends on an external literal-board replay that confirms the fixture and both routes.
The Fixed 5×4 Board and Its Pieces
The arena is a compact five-column by four-row grid. Two wall cells divide the center, two cover cells reduce incoming hits, and the remaining cells are open. The player controls a single unit with 6 starting health. The Scout starts with 2 health and the Guard starts with 4 health, and both are placed at fixed coordinates every run. Because the player has 6 health and the combined enemy health is 6, the math rewards careful sequencing rather than brute force.
| Piece | Starting Health | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Player | 6 | Single unit; wins fight by reducing both enemies to 0 |
| Scout | 2 | Lower-health enemy; removed in one normal hit |
| Guard | 4 | Higher-health enemy; removed by two adjacent normal hits |
A normal hit always deals 2 damage, and a unit standing on cover takes 1 damage instead. Walls cannot be entered at all, by either side. Those three rules — flat damage, cover reduction, and impassable walls — are the entire damage and movement model, and they never change between runs.
How to Play Turn-Based Tactics in a Browser
- Open Turn-Based Tactics in your browser and read the status panel so you can see the current phase, unit health, positions, terrain, and the last resolved event message.
- During the Move phase, pick an orthogonal direction with the arrow keys or the labeled direction buttons, or press Space to wait. Walls and occupied cells reject the move as a no-op.
- Confirm the player is on a legal cell. If the button or key is disabled, the action is illegal in the current state and will not mutate the board.
- During the Attack phase, click an adjacent living enemy or press 1 for the Scout or 2 for the Guard. Press Space to wait if no adjacent enemy is in range.
- Watch the deterministic enemy phase resolve automatically. Each living enemy either attacks if adjacent to the player or moves one cell toward the player using horizontal-before-vertical priority when that move is legal.
- Repeat the two-phase cycle until one side is reduced to 0 health. Then restart to attempt the disclosed ten-action perfect route or to study a different line.
Phase Order, Cover, and Enemy Movement Explained
The order of operations matters because the player can act twice before the enemy gets its turn. Move comes first, then Attack, then every living enemy resolves exactly one deterministic action. A player who waits through both phases of a turn deliberately hands initiative to the enemy while keeping phase order intact. Cover interacts with that initiative. Standing on a cover cell cuts an incoming hit from 2 damage to 1, which means a single waiting turn on cover can absorb what would otherwise be a punishing blow from an approaching Guard.
Enemy pursuit follows a single fixed tie-breaker. When an enemy cannot attack because it is not adjacent, it tries to move one orthogonal cell closer to the player. If both a horizontal and a vertical step would reduce the Manhattan distance, it chooses the horizontal step first. That horizontal-before-vertical priority is hard-coded, so the same opening always produces the same enemy positions after the same player inputs. This is also why the disclosed ten-action route is reproducible: every enemy step is a function of the player's prior positions, and the function never has a random seed.
Controls: Keyboard, Mouse, and Touch
Three input paths exist for the same product. Mouse and touch players use the labeled controls on screen: direction buttons for movement, named target buttons for the Scout and Guard, and a Wait button for either phase. Keyboard players use the Arrow keys during the move phase, Space to wait during either phase, and 1 or 2 to target the Scout or Guard during the attack phase. The interface shows the current phase, unit health, terrain, legal movement buttons, available targets, and a plain-language event message after every action.
| Action | Keyboard | Mouse / Touch |
|---|---|---|
| Move one orthogonal cell | Arrow keys | Labeled direction button |
| Wait during Move phase | Space | Wait button |
| Attack the Scout | 1 | Scout target button |
| Attack the Guard | 2 | Guard target button |
| Wait during Attack phase | Space | Wait button |
| Begin a new run | Restart control | Restart button |
Disabled controls expose actions that are currently illegal without mutating the game state, so a reader can tell the difference between an input that did nothing because it was blocked and an input that did nothing because it was a legal wait. The status panel makes the whole sequence inspectable by showing phase, health, positions, and the last resolved event after every action.
The Ten-Action Route to 1,000 Points
The product discloses a perfect route of ten player actions that retains 5 health and earns exactly 1,000 points: move right, wait the attack, wait the next move, wait the attack, wait the move, attack the Guard, wait the move, attack the Guard, move right, and attack the Scout. The equivalent keyboard route is ArrowRight, Space, Space, Space, Space, 2, Space, 2, ArrowRight, 1.
The disclosed ten-action route is not a strategy guide for every possible browser tactics game; it is the verified answer to this specific fixture. The route demonstrates why phase order matters. The early waits let the Guard walk into striking distance while the player occupies the lower cover cell, so the Guard's first hit is reduced from 2 damage to 1. Two adjacent attacks then remove the Guard before the final move and Scout attack. A reader who wants a parallel strategy walk-through for the same tool can compare the line in Grid Battle Strategy Game: Plan Ten Actions, Score 1,000 for an angle that focuses on planning rather than deterministic replay.
What the Deterministic Loss Route Looks Like
The product also discloses the deterministic loss route: waiting through both phases for six full turns. With no player attacks and no cover advantage, the Guard closes distance and lands full 2-damage hits until the player's 6 health is exhausted. Because every enemy step is computed from the same horizontal-before-vertical rule, the loss timeline is just as predictable as the win timeline. That mirror symmetry is what makes the tool a logic puzzle rather than a military simulation, strategic aptitude test, educational grade, or standardized cognitive assessment, and the status panel exposes it by showing the phase, health, positions, and last resolved event after every action.
Readers who want a different lens on the same deterministic ten-action fixture should restart the run and follow the keyboard sequence above. The same board, the same rules, and the same 1,000-point finish will appear whenever the inputs are identical.