hey, played pagala vs the standard ai on the classic board. started with the tutorial, it got me moving in a few minutes, the steps are clear and well paced.
the part that really clicked, and also the part that beat me, was realizing a full 5/5 bowl isn't a permanent block. if it still has your color, you can pick it back up. i had plugged a 3-white stack to 5/5 thinking i was safe, and next turn the ai picked that bowl up, walked a little loop, and dropped two whites into c3 in one turn, including the 4th on shard 5. i had 3 blacks on b2 and would have been one short of winning the turn after. that moment is the hook, it made me want another game.
a couple notes:
- the tutorial is on a 4x4 board, the live classic board is 4x5, threw me a bit at first. column 1 being on the right was also easy to misread.
- a tooltip about sealing vs temporary full bowls showed up mid-game; it'd help even more in the first tutorial, since that's what decided the match.
- confirm stays greyed out until the placement animation finishes, so it looks stuck for a second.
- if auto-choose first shard is on, clicking a destination too fast can drop the wrong piece.
the wood-and-shard look is really warm, and the teal rings plus the numbered path preview made moves easy to read. the standard ai is no dummy either, it stacked, clogged my threats, and used that loop i'd only just understood. fun game, thanks for sharing it!