Ruling — Project L

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Project Lbg-260180-en-1e

In Project L, players complete a range of puzzles using pieces to earn points.[1] The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.[1]

**Setup**

* Each player takes one Player mat.[1]

* Each player takes one level-1 piece and one level-2 piece, placing both in their personal supply to the right of their Player mat.[1]

* (Solo Variant): Select 15 random White puzzles and 10 random Black puzzles; shuffle each set separately and place Black puzzles face down in the center, then White puzzles on top to form the puzzle deck.[2]

* (Solo Variant): Reveal 9 puzzles from the top of the puzzle deck and arrange them into a 3 × 3 grid.[2]

* (Solo Variant): Place all colored pieces in a reserve.[2]

* (Solo Variant): Take four random pieces from the reserve and place one above the 1st and 3rd columns and two above the 2nd column of the puzzle grid.[2]

* (Solo Variant): Place pieces into the opponent's supply based on difficulty: Normal (6 pieces), Hard (3 pieces), or Unbeatable (0 pieces).[2]

* (Solo Variant): Designate an area for your opponent, but no Player mat is needed for them.[2]

**Gameplay**

The game is played over a number of rounds, beginning with the first player and moving clockwise.[3] On your turn, you must perform 3 actions.[3] Unless stated otherwise, actions can be performed in any order and any number of times.[3]

**Actions**

* **Take**: Take one puzzle from a row and place it above your Player mat, then replace it with a new one from the corresponding deck; alternatively, take the top puzzle from either deck face up.[3] (Note: You cannot take a puzzle if you already have 4 unfinished puzzles).[3]

* *Exception*: Each time you take a puzzle from a column of the puzzle grid, take one piece from above the corresponding supply (skip if no pieces are above the column) and place it into your opponent's supply.[4]

* **Recycle**: Choose a row of puzzles, remove all puzzles from it, place them on the bottom of the corresponding deck in any order, and refill the row with 4 new puzzles from the top of the deck.[3] (Note: This action cannot be used in the specific variant described in source [4]).[4]

* **Upgrade**: Either take a new level-1 piece from the reserve to add to your personal supply, or return a piece from your supply to the reserve and take a replacement piece of the same level, one level lower, or one level higher.[3]

* **Place**: Place one piece from your supply into one of your puzzles, laid flat in the recessed area without overlapping other pieces.[3] (Note: Once placed, a piece cannot be moved or removed until the puzzle is completed).[3]

* **Master**: This action may be performed once per turn.[3]

**Completing Puzzles**

A puzzle is completed when its recessed area is completely filled with pieces.[5] When completing a puzzle, follow these steps in order:

1. Return all pieces from the puzzle to your personal supply.[5]

2. Take a new piece (as depicted on the puzzle) from the reserve and place it in your personal supply.[5]

3. Place the puzzle face down on your Victory Point pile to the left of your Player mat.[5]

**Opponent's Turn (Specific Variant)**

In the variant described in source,[4] the opponent always attempts to take one puzzle and place it directly into their Victory Point pile as if completed.[4] They cannot take puzzles from a locked column (one with at least one piece above it).[4] If they can take a puzzle, they take the one worth the most points (or the lowest numbered position in a tie).[4] After they take a puzzle:

1. Move all pieces from the opponent's supply to above the column where the puzzle was taken from.[4]

2. Move 1 piece from above each other column to above the column where the puzzle was taken from.[4]

3. Replace the puzzle the opponent took with a new one from the puzzle deck.[4]

**End of Game and Scoring**

The end of the game is triggered when the Black puzzle deck becomes empty.[5][3] Players finish the current round and then play one final round.[4][5][3]

* **Final Scoring**: Total the points in both your and your opponents' Victory Point piles.[4] Deduct points for any unfinished puzzles or Finishing Touches as

[1] RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook · p.5 · SETUP · GAMEPLAY OVERVIEW

[2] RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook · p.8 · SOLO VARIANT · SETUP

[3] RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook · p.6 · GAMEPLAY · Take · Recycle · Upgrade · Place · Master once per turn.

[4] RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook · p.9 · GAMEPLAY · YOUR TURN · YOUR OPPONENT'S TURN · After your opponent takes a puzzle: · GAME END · FINAL SCORING

[5] RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook · p.6 · COMPLETING PUZZLES · TAKING PIECES FROM RESERVE · Known Victory Points · GAME END

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 90 ms · ask 10442 ms · total 10534 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 10534 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 9, "score": 0.048412, "snippet": "You take the first turn, followed by your opponent. This process continues until the end of the game is triggered. Play your turn in the same way as you would in the base game with the following exceptions: Each time you take a puzzle from any of the columns of the puzzle grid, take one piece from a", "headingPath": "GAMEPLAY · YOUR TURN · YOUR OPPONENT'S TURN · After your opponent takes a puzzle: · GAME END · FINAL SCORING", "sharpsignalDocId": 406}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.04741, "snippet": "The game is played over a number of rounds. In each round, beginning with the first player and going in clockwise order, each player takes a turn. This continues until the Black puzzle deck is empty. Players complete that round and then play one final round. On your turn, you must perform 3 actions.", "headingPath": "GAMEPLAY · Take · Recycle · Upgrade · Place · Master once per turn.", "sharpsignalDocId": 406}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.047379, "snippet": "At the end of an action in which the recessed area of a puzzle is completely filled with pieces, that puzzle is considered completed. Multiple puzzles may be completed with a single action. When you complete a puzzle, follow these steps in order: 1 Return all the pieces from the puzzle to your perso", "headingPath": "COMPLETING PUZZLES · TAKING PIECES FROM RESERVE · Known Victory Points · GAME END", "sharpsignalDocId": 406}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.045805, "snippet": "When playing with more than 4 players, use the Line Clear Variant. Can you handle 4 puzzle rows? Follow the base game setup, but place only 3 puzzles into each of the puzzle rows. After that: Create a second row of 3 White puzzles and a second row of 3 Black puzzles to the opposite side of the puzzl", "headingPath": "LINE CLEAR VARIANT (5-6 player games) · SETUP · GAMEPLAY · GAME END", "sharpsignalDocId": 406}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.045262, "snippet": "Do you have what it takes to challenge the artificial mastermind? The following instructions describe how to set up the solo game: 1 Select 15 random White puzzles and 10 random Black puzzles. Shuffle each set of puzzles separately and place the Black puzzles face down in the centre of the play area", "headingPath": "SOLO VARIANT · SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 406}, {"page": 13, "score": 0.045228, "snippet": "During a round, only the leftmost Finesse tile can be achieved, and only if it is face up. At the end of each round, the leftmost Finesse tile is removed from the game. Therefore, in the first two rounds of the game, no player can achieve a Finesse (because the initial two tiles are face down.) All ", "headingPath": "GAMEPLAY · Achieving a Finesse · Insert · GAME END · FINISHING TOUCHES", "sharpsignalDocId": 406}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "5 Take 1 Player mat for each player, making sure you include the board showing the first player marker. Shuffle them and then deal one at In Project L, players will complete a range of puzzles using their pieces to try and earn as many points as they can. The player with the most points at the end o", "headingPath": "SETUP · GAMEPLAY OVERVIEW", "sharpsignalDocId": 406}, {"page": 13, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "If more than one player has the most Victory Points at the end of the game, the tied player with the most Credits is the winner. If still tied, proceed to the standard game tie-breaker rules. For the pink tiles, each time you achieve the Finesse, take the Credits depicted on the bottom of the tile f", "headingPath": "FINAL SCORING", "sharpsignalDocId": 406}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETUP · GAMEPLAY OVERVIEW", "sharpsignalDocId": 406}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SOLO VARIANT · SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 406}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "GAMEPLAY · Take · Recycle · Upgrade · Place · Master once per turn.", "sharpsignalDocId": 406}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "GAMEPLAY · YOUR TURN · YOUR OPPONENT'S TURN · After your opponent takes a puzzle: · GAME END · FINAL SCORING", "sharpsignalDocId": 406}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "COMPLETING PUZZLES · TAKING PIECES FROM RESERVE · Known Victory Points · GAME END", "sharpsignalDocId": 406}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 406 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 406 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.90094 of 3422 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 15, 2026 12:50

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	GAMEPLAY · YOUR TURN · YOUR OPPONENT'S TURN · After your opponent takes a puzzle: · GAME END · FINAL SCORING	p.9	0.048412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	GAMEPLAY · Take · Recycle · Upgrade · Place · Master once per turn.	p.6	0.04741 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	COMPLETING PUZZLES · TAKING PIECES FROM RESERVE · Known Victory Points · GAME END	p.6	0.047379 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	LINE CLEAR VARIANT (5-6 player games) · SETUP · GAMEPLAY · GAME END	p.10	0.045805 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	SOLO VARIANT · SETUP	p.8	0.045262 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	GAMEPLAY · Achieving a Finesse · Insert · GAME END · FINISHING TOUCHES	p.13	0.045228 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	SETUP · GAMEPLAY OVERVIEW	p.5	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	FINAL SCORING	p.13	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 80 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	GAMEPLAY · YOUR TURN · YOUR OPPONENT'S TURN · After your opponent takes a puzzle: · GAME END · FINAL SCORING	p.9	#1	0.048412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	SOLO VARIANT · SETUP	p.8	#5	0.045262 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	COMPLETING PUZZLES · TAKING PIECES FROM RESERVE · Known Victory Points · GAME END	p.6	#3	0.047379 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	FINAL SCORING	p.13	#8	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	SETUP · GAMEPLAY OVERVIEW	p.5	#7	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	FINESSE SOLO VARIANT · SETUP · YOUR TURN · YOUR OPPONENT'S TURN · GAME END · FINISHING TOUCHES · …	p.16	#9	0.029572 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	LINE CLEAR VARIANT (5-6 player games) · SETUP · GAMEPLAY · GAME END	p.10	#4	0.045805 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	GAMEPLAY · Take · Recycle · Upgrade · Place · Master once per turn.	p.6	#2	0.04741 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	SETUP · GAMEPLAY OVERVIEW	p.5	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	SOLO VARIANT · SETUP	p.8	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	GAMEPLAY · Take · Recycle · Upgrade · Place · Master once per turn.	p.6	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	GAMEPLAY · YOUR TURN · YOUR OPPONENT'S TURN · After your opponent takes a puzzle: · GAME END · FINAL SCORING	p.9	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Project L — Rulebook (corpus doc 406)	COMPLETING PUZZLES · TAKING PIECES FROM RESERVE · Known Victory Points · GAME END	p.6	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 90 ms · first delta 5511 ms · total 10534 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 90 ms · ask 10442 ms · gateway work 10534 ms · total 10534 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3329
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 1024
tok/sec: 205.7 tok/sec — 1024 output tokens in 4.977 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 20s ago)
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 335), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.