Basic Game Play
Overload is played by 2-4 players on a grid of usually 6x6 fields. A player takes ownership of a field by putting a counter of his own colour on it. You can only put counters on a field that is empty or is in your colour already.Each field can only take a limited number of counters; if you add more, it is overloaded and explodes, shattering fragments to the left, right, top and bottom of the exploding field. These new fields all will have your colour and one more counter than before. This graphic illustrates the maximum number of counters per field
If this causes another overloaded field, that one will explode and so on. The game is finished when all fields are of the same colour or empty.
It's also possible to activate a countdown timer, which limits the thinking time for a move. If you are too slow, you lose the right to place a counter in this round.
The Game UI
To the left and right of the central board, player information is displayed. This includes a preview of the appearance of the counters for a load of 1-4. Typically, the counters represent load by increasingly bright colours, so it's good to have a reference.
At the bottom, you see four buttons. Their functions are, from left to right:
- Open the settings dialog
- Turn sound off or on
- Pause current game
- Reset: stop the game, clear the board and go back to the initial state