Activities

Activities are games that open inside a Discord voice channel: Chess, 8-Ball pool, UNO and Ludo. Nobody installs anything. A command in chat posts a challenge or a table, the players press a button, and the board opens in their voice channel. The game runs on Epix's servers, which check every move, shuffle the cards, roll the dice, keep the clocks and decide the result; the board on your screen only shows it.

#Starting a challenge: Chess and 8-Ball

1. 01
   Challenge someone

   !chess @member or !8ball @member posts a challenge. The challenger plays White in chess and breaks in 8-Ball. You cannot challenge yourself or a bot, or run two games of the same kind with the same person.

2. 02
   They accept

   The named member presses Accept or Decline. Until the game starts, the challenger can Withdraw. An unanswered challenge expires after 5 minutes.

3. 03
   Both press Open

   Discord opens an Activity only for the person who asks, so each player presses Open themselves, from a voice channel, within 5 minutes of accepting. The game begins once both are at the board.

#Opening a table: UNO and Ludo

1. 01
   Open the table

   !uno or !ludo posts a lobby with a live countdown. Anyone in the channel can press Join or Leave until it closes, 2 minutes later.

2. 02
   Close it

   The person who opened the table can press Start now to close it early. When it closes, the seats are final. A table without enough players closes instead: UNO needs 2, and so does Ludo unless computer players are switched on, in which case the host alone is enough. If the host leaves before it starts, the table closes.

3. 03
   Everyone presses Open the table

   Each seated player opens the board from a voice channel within 5 minutes. Play begins as soon as everyone has loaded, or after 60 seconds at most; anyone still missing then is played for until they arrive.

!chess @member blitz
!8ball @member
!uno
!ludo

#Chess

• Each side has 30 seconds to make its first move, or the game is aborted: no result, no rating change and no reward. The clocks start once both sides have moved, and resigning before then also aborts.
• Either player can offer a draw. Offering back accepts it, and making a move declines your opponent's offer.
• Running out of time against a side that could never checkmate is a draw rather than a loss.
• Rematch swaps colors and starts a new game, which is rated and paid like any other.
• Chess is rated: everyone starts at 1500, and a result moves your rating by up to 32 points for your first 30 rated games and up to 20 after that. Aborted, abandoned and never-started games are not rated.
• The board has a shop of piece sets. Classic is free; Kiwen Suwi, Merida, Chessnut, Terracotta, Celtic, Papercut, Fantasy and Spatial cost 100 to 700 EPIX. A set you buy stays yours, and your side is drawn with it on both boards.

#8-Ball pool

• The challenger breaks. Each shot has a 60-second clock that starts once the balls stop rolling.
• Letting the clock run out is a foul, not a lost frame: your opponent takes the next shot with ball in hand.
• On a touch screen you choose how to shoot: drag the cue back to charge, or use the power bar. The choice is saved for you.
• A rematch starts only when both players ask for it and both are still at the table. The loser of the last frame breaks.

#UNO

• Each player is dealt 7 cards and has 30 seconds per turn.
• Draw cards stack. A +2 can be answered with any +2 or a +4; a +4 can be answered with a +4 or a +2 of the color its player chose. If you cannot or do not answer, you take the whole pile.
• A Wild Draw Four can be played whenever you hold one.
• Call UNO once you are down to one card. Until you do, any other player can catch you, and you draw 2.
• When your time runs out, you draw a card and the turn passes, or take the pile if draws are stacked against you.
• Players who empty their hand are placed in the order they went out, and the hand carries on until one player is left.

#Ludo

The host sets the rules with four menus on the lobby message; nobody else can change them, and the table size cannot be set below the number of people already seated.

• When you have only one possible move, it plays itself.
• Leaving mid-game forfeits: your tokens come off the board and you are ranked last.
• Seated players can send emotes and quick-chat lines to the table.
• A rematch starts once every human still at the table asks for one; against computer players alone it starts at once.

#Watching

Others in the voice channel can join the running Activity and watch. They see the table but no hidden cards, and cannot play. Chess and 8-Ball hold up to 12 people, Ludo 16 and UNO 20, players included.

#Dropouts and restarts

• If everyone leaves, the game is kept for 2 minutes in Chess and 8-Ball and 10 minutes in UNO and Ludo, with no turns played meanwhile. If nobody returns, it is closed as abandoned and pays nothing.
• Games are saved every 30 seconds. After a restart on Epix's side the clocks are re-anchored, so the downtime does not cost anyone time.

#Rewards in EPIX

Finished games pay EPIX straight into each player's wallet, as below; see Profiles and EPIX for what it buys. Computer players earn nothing.

#Free and Premium

All four Activities are free, with no Premium-only rules or seats.

#Troubleshooting

• "Discord refused to open the board": join a voice channel and press Open again.
• "Another game is still being played in this channel's Activity": a voice channel runs one Activity at a time. Start yours when it ends, or from another voice channel.
• "You already have a game going with that player" or "You are already in a game of Uno" (or Ludo): finish that game first, or let it end.
• The message says the game was never started: nobody opened the board in time. Run the command again for a fresh one.
• No reward arrived: check the conditions above. Short games, players not connected at the end, 8-Ball and Ludo rematches, and games past the daily ten pay nothing.