Quoridor

How to Play Quoridor

Tap a glowing dot

Step your pawn onto that square. Nothing to choose first.

Across / Upright

The two buttons on the bar: which way your next wall lies.

Tap a gap between squares

Lay the wall in that gap, the way the bar says.

Right-click the board

Switches between across and upright.

Arrow keys

Step without aiming.

R

Switches between across and upright.

U

Take back the last turn.

Rules

• Each pawn begins in the middle of its own edge. You win by reaching any square on the far edge, so the race is nine rows long and the first one there takes it.
• A turn is one thing or the other: step a single square up, down, left or right, or lay one wall. You cannot do both, and you cannot pass.
• Every wall is two squares long and sits in the groove between squares. Walls may not overlap along their own line, and may not cross one already laid.
• Ten walls each, and no more. Once yours are gone every remaining turn has to be a step, which is why spending them early is rarely wise.
• No wall may leave either pawn with no route at all to its goal edge. Lengthening a journey is the whole point; closing it off entirely is never allowed, and the board will refuse the wall.
• Standing face to face, you jump the other pawn and land beyond it. If a wall or the board edge sits directly behind them, you slip round to either side of them instead.

Tips for Quoridor

• Count both journeys before every turn. The scoreboard shows each pawn's shortest route, and the player with the lower number is usually the one who is winning.
• A wall that adds two steps to your rival and nothing to you is worth more than one that adds four to them and three to you. Walls cut both ways because they belong to the board, not to the person who placed them.
• Walls laid ahead of a pawn are stepped around in a move or two. Walls laid to the side of the route it has already committed to are the ones that cost real time.
• Running out of walls while your rival still holds several is close to losing. Keep a couple back so you can answer the run they make for the finish.
• When your route and theirs are the same length and it is your turn, simply stepping is often stronger than building, because you reach the edge first.
• The jump is an escape as well as an attack. Standing nose to nose with a pawn you want past is sometimes faster than walking round it.

Questions

If You Like Quoridor

• Chess Master – Another board game played against an engine, where thinking a move further ahead than your opponent decides it.
• Tic Tac Toe – A smaller two-player game on the same screen, for when fifteen minutes is more than you have.