Waving Hands

A browser remake of Richard Bartle's 1977 pencil-and-paper wizard duel, also known as Spellbinder and Spellcaster, and the game behind Andrew Plotkin's Spellcast for X Windows.

Each turn both wizards secretly choose a gesture for each hand, then reveal them together. The right run of gestures on one hand is a spell. Gestures can overlap, so F-F-F casts Paralysis and following it with S-S-D-D finishes a Fireball. Both palms at once is surrender.

The full rules, as transcribed from the Duel Purpose fanzine, are in docs/waving-hands-rules.txt.

Playing

npm install
npm run dev

You duel a heuristic bot. Choose a gesture per hand, pick which completed spell (if any) each hand casts and at whom, and reveal. Beneath each hand is a list of the spells that hand is part-way through; selecting one makes its next gesture, and the diamond pins it. Every entry in the spell sheet offers "Plan with left hand" and "Plan with right hand", showing what that hand still has to make, so a duel can start from a chosen spell rather than a guessed gesture. When a rule decides something surprising (a shield that stopped a goblin but not a wound spell, a countered spell, a one-handed clap, a reused run of gestures) the result strip explains it once per duel; the checkbox under the hands turns this off. Warnings above the hands cite the opponent's gestures that could finish a hostile spell, and selecting a warning lights those gestures up in the ledger. After each reveal a short strip shows what changed each wizard's health and everything else worth knowing, with the full chronicle in the sidebar. The rules are at /rules.

The duel is saved to the browser's local storage after every change, so it survives reading the rules, a refresh, or a phone putting the tab to sleep. Starting a new duel asks first if one is under way. Nothing is rendered on the server.

Layout

• src/lib/game/spells.ts the spell book and monster stats
• src/lib/game/gestures.ts sequence matching, threat detection, gesture-sharing conflicts
• src/lib/game/resolve.ts simultaneous turn resolution
• src/lib/game/bot.ts the opponent
• src/lib/game/duel.svelte.ts reactive store binding the engine to the UI
• src/lib/components/ ledger, hand pickers, status, chronicle, spell sheet

Simplifications

Raise dead only heals; there is no one left to raise in a two-wizard duel once someone dies. Paralysis and charm person pick the hand at cast time rather than after the reveal. A hastened wizard's second pair of gestures is bound by the same enchantments as the first. Under time stop the frozen wizard's ledger shows a row of question marks, so they know a stopped moment passed even if nothing touched them.

The bot

The opponent scores every pair of gestures by the spells they finish, the spells they move toward, and what your visible gestures threaten. Spells it cast in the last few turns are discounted so it does not fall into a rut, and each named opponent weights the spell book a little differently.

Deploying

See deploy/README.md: one small droplet running Caddy serves the static build.

Tests

npm test

Credits

The gesture silhouettes on the buttons and the favicon are adapted from the bitmaps in Andrew Plotkin's Spellcast for X Windows (1993). Its notice: "This implementation is by Andrew Plotkin. It is copyright 1993 by Andrew Plotkin. The source code may be freely copied, distributed, and modified, as long as this copyright notice is retained. The source code and any derivative works may not be sold for profit without the permission of Andrew Plotkin and Richard Bartle."