The game SALISA consists in a Route of Steps where, in each Step, the Player must help two women, Kuku and Pitchu in transferring their load to a young man, Juju. The load is a pyramidal arrangement of concentric objects. The following rules shall be respected: 1) only one objet shall be moved at the same time; 2) normally, a bigger object cannot be put on top of a smaller one – so, the original pyramidal arrangement of objects shall be preserved at the end. The number of objects ranges from 2 to 20. The difficulty increases with both the Level and the number of objects.
The game inside the Steps is based on the so-called "Hanoï Tower" (introduced by the French mathematician Édouard Lucas, 1842-1891).
Along with the author, ones can think about women carrying various heavy and burdensome loads on their heads, a scene commonly seen throughout towns and campaigns, in Africa, Asia, but not only. Let’s have a special thought for them… and help the next time we meet!
The Route includes a mandatory path, composed of Steps that shall be validated before moving forward; a Step is validated if the game is completed with a score points surpassing the selected threshold. All the Steps of the Training Level "0" are non-mandatory and are open; the non-mandatory Steps of the upper Levels become all together accessible only when the last mandatory Step of the Level is validated.
The Player’s credit (tokens) is consumed in two occasions: 1) when a mandatory Step is played for the very first time and 2) every time that Step is replayed before its validation. In other words, all non-mandatory and all validated Steps are played free of tokens. The validation threshold can be temporarily adapted (lowered) to the Player’s strength, at the expense of some additional tokens.
In another side, the Player can win tokens and stars in various occasions, in case of very good performances: validating a Step without error; being the very first Player validating a Step; completing a Level. Also, a “sympathy” token is randomly given to unsuccessful but pugnacious Players as encouragement to persevere.
The game normally opens with the “Tour”, where the status of all Steps is displayed, but it can open directly on the Steps game field page. The Player can launch either a Step game or its demonstration (up to 10 objects for demo). Several means of launching the game are available, both from the SALISA “Tour” and from the Step game field: either by double-taping or long-pressing the screen or by using dedicated buttons. During the game, to move an object: simply touch-drag and drop it on its destination (one of the three Holders).
A game session can be paused and/or saved, for a given time, to be resumed. The saved game session is lost either upon expiration of the given time, or after its restoration, or also when another session is. Saving a game session gives the possibility to launch other game sessions in the meantime.
There is a Player Profile & Data page, where the Player can do the following: select his (her) language (English, French, Russian, Lingala...), resupply tokens, adapt the Step validation threshold, follow up his (her) performance, route and history. From there he (she) can also follow the best Players, the “Top 3” performances. Lastly, accessing to the Game Center, he can have a larger insight on the SALISA Player’s performances and, from there, increase his (her) experience of the game by challenge himself (herself) with friends and other Players.
Enjoy your game!!!
Note: The word "Salisa" means "Help" in many languages in Central Africa (e.g. in Lingala).