Last modified: Fri 12/27/96 1945 PST
As with all Waldzell games, players must agree on the ontology that will underlie their game. For more information, see the description of this step for zeroth-order games.
The starting point of play in a first-order game is a completed zeroth-order game, the skeleton, which is used as described below. This template may be obtained by selecting a completed game from the Game Archive or by playing a zeroth-order game in anticipation of first-order play. In either case, the primary criterion is that the skeleton must be compatible with the ontology to which the players have committed for their first-order game. In fact, it needn't have been played as a zeroth-order game: it can any be any connected network of terms and relations in which every term participates in at least two assertions.
Players agree on the order in which they will move, and play in that order throughout the game.
Starting from the chosen skeleton, players take turns making one assertion (not N assertions with N players, as in zeroth-order play) per move. These assertions are subject to the same connectivity constraint as a zeroth-order game, but any assertion can (but needn't) add a new term to the network.
The first-order game is complete (for purposes of submission to the Game Archive) when every skeleton term has been used in at least one first-order assertion, i.e. as soon as every skeleton term is participating in at least two assertions. Actual game play ends when the players agree to stop, but only at the end of a round (each player contributes the same number of assertions to the game).