1.1. What is Iagno?

Iagno is a computer version of the game Reversi, more popularly called Othello. Iagno is a two player strategy game similar to Go. The board is 8 by 8 with tiles that are black on one side and white on the other side. The object of Iagno is to flip as many of your opponent's tiles to your color as possible without your opponent flipping your tiles. This is done by trapping your opponent's tiles between two tiles of your own color.

To run Iagno, select Iagno from the Games submenu of the Main Menu, or type iagno on the command line.

1.2. Why is Othello called Iagno?

You're probably wondering why this game is called Iagno instead of Othello or even gnothello. The answer is complicated, and involves things like trademarks and lawyers and whatnot. Instead of leaving it at that, I'll tell you a long and complicated lie about the origin of the name Iagno.

On a stormy night, like those depicted so much in England, a lonely programmer was sitting in front of his computer screen. Ian had finished his masterpiece in gaming. It was a fully interactive game of Othello and he decided to play a pun with the name and called it gnothello for the game was written using GNOME.

Later his buddies came over and like all programmers he showed off his masterpiece. They all laughed in his face and told Ian that his game was worthless and a pitiful attempt to be a true hacker. After Ian kicked them out he decided to rename his program Iago [1] for the evil which had manifested itself due to his game. Yet it still didn't sound right. All GNOME programs have some part of GNOME in it, Ian thought. After much thought he decided on the name we have come to cherish, Iagno .