Board Games
How to play

Rules

Every game here takes a minute to learn. Pick one below to jump to its rules.

Checkers Play →

Goal: capture all of your opponent's pieces, or leave them with no legal move.

  • Black moves first. Pieces move one square diagonally forward.
  • Capture by jumping over an adjacent enemy piece. Captures are mandatory, and so is continuing a multi-jump.
  • A piece reaching the far row becomes a king and can move backwards too. Being crowned ends the move.

The classic: every forced capture is a chance to set a trap.

Hex Play →

Goal: connect your two opposite sides of the board with an unbroken chain of your stones.

  • Players take turns placing a stone on any empty cell.
  • Stones never move and are never captured.
  • Swap rule: after the first move, the second player may take that stone as their own instead of moving.
  • Draws are impossible, so someone always connects.

Quick to learn, hard to master, with deep tactics and no draws.

Breakthrough Play →

Goal: get one of your pawns to your opponent's back row.

  • Pawns move one square forward, either straight ahead or diagonally.
  • Pawns capture only by moving diagonally forward onto an enemy pawn.
  • The first player to reach the far row wins. Draws are impossible.

Fast and aggressive: simple rules hide a lot of positional play and sacrifices.

Othello Play →

Goal: have the most discs showing your colour when the game ends.

  • Place a disc so that it traps a straight line of enemy discs (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) against another of your discs.
  • Every trapped disc flips to your colour.
  • If you have no legal move, you pass. The game ends when neither player can move.

The board can swing wildly right up to the last move, so the endgame counting matters.

Konane Play →

Goal: be the last player able to move.

  • Opening: Black removes one of their pieces from the centre or a corner, then White removes one of theirs next to the gap.
  • After that, every move is a jump over an adjacent enemy piece into an empty square, capturing it. Jumps are orthogonal only.
  • You can chain several jumps in one turn, as long as they carry on in the same direction.
  • If you have no jump available on your turn, you lose. Draws are impossible.

A traditional Hawaiian game where the real fight is over who runs out of moves first.