Paint the Floor

Paint the Floor is sixty seconds of greed. Nobody gets knocked out and nothing ever washes back to sandstone, so a tile belongs to whoever walked over it last. The count that matters is the one at the buzzer, and a lead with ten seconds left is only a lead if you keep defending it.

How the floor fills

You paint the tile under your feet, one at a time, so walking in a straight line lays a stripe one tile wide. Going back over your own colour earns nothing. Walking over a rival's colour takes the tile from them, which against that player is worth twice what bare floor is: you gain one and they lose one.

Five seconds in, the first Paint Burst urn appears, and another follows seven seconds after each one is placed, as long as there is room for it. Whoever reaches an urn first sets it off, and every tile within three and a half tiles of it, about 37 in all, takes their colour at once, rivals' tiles included. Urns never appear within two metres of anyone, so nobody can wait on the spot.

Four stone shrines stand on the floor, one in each quarter. They are solid, and a dash into one is a dash wasted.

The dash

Q is the Paint Dash (Space or a click fires it too): a surge in the direction you face that paints every tile it crosses. It recharges in four seconds. It has two jobs. One is beating a rival to an urn, where a dash at the right moment wins against anyone walking. The other is cutting through a rival's block of colour, which takes a stripe from them and splits a solid patch into two smaller ones you can come back for.

Twists

Most rounds are plain. About one in four is Big Brush, where you paint a plus of five tiles instead of one, so a straight walk lays a stripe three tiles wide. About one in seven lets Bastet's cat loose: it wanders the floor slower than you walk and shoves away anyone who comes within a metre of it. It never touches the paint, but it will knock you off your line, mid-dash included.

Playing for the buzzer

• Paint bare floor while there is plenty of it, then switch to stealing. Late in the round the leader's tiles are the best ones on the floor.
• Don't retrace. A sweep where every pass is on new tiles beats running loops over your own colour.
• In Big Brush, sweep in lanes three tiles apart and nothing is wasted.
• Keep the dash ready for urns. A burst is about 37 tiles at once, close to seven seconds of walking on fresh floor.
• An urn paints over everyone. One that goes off in the middle of your best patch hands a rival a whole circle of it, so be the one who reaches the urns nearest your colour.
• The status line shows the biggest share of the floor anyone holds. When it climbs fast, someone is running away with it and needs stealing from.
• Tiles change hands right up to the buzzer. Spend the last seconds on a rival's colour, not your own.

Floor size

The floor grows with the room: 14 by 14 tiles at 2 players, 18 by 18 up to 4, 22 by 22 up to 6, 24 by 24 up to 8, and 28 by 28 from 9 players up to 16. That is about 98 tiles each at 2 players and about 49 each at 16, so a single burst counts for far more in a small room, where it covers nearly a fifth of the floor. Up to five players there is one urn on the floor at a time, from six there can be two, and from twelve there can be three. Everyone starts on a ring near the edge, facing the middle.