How to play Wallz

The board and the goal

Wallz is played on a 9×9 grid. Each player controls a single pawn. The two pawns start centered on opposite edges of the board, facing each other. Your goal is the row on the far side, the edge your opponent started on. The moment your pawn reaches any square on that far edge, you win.

To make the two sides easy to tell apart, your goal row is tinted in your opponent's color. You start on your own color and run toward theirs.

Your turn: move or wall

On every turn you do exactly one of two things: move your pawn, or place a wall. You never do both in the same turn. That single either-or decision, repeated, is the entire game. Spend the turn getting closer to your goal, or spend it slowing your opponent down.

Moving your pawn

A pawn moves one square at a time, straight up, down, left, or right. It cannot move diagonally (except in the special jump case below) and it cannot move through a wall. If a wall sits between your pawn and the square you want, that direction is blocked.

Jumps

When the two pawns are face to face, you can jump. If your opponent is directly in front of you and the square beyond them is open, you may leap straight over to that square in a single move.

If a wall (or the edge of the board) sits directly behind your opponent so you can't land beyond them, you may instead step diagonally to either open square beside them. Jumps are free movement, not a wall placement, so they only cost your one move for the turn.

Placing walls

Each player has ten walls for the whole game. That is all you get, with no refills. A wall is two segments long and sits in the grooves between squares, blocking any pawn from crossing it.

• Walls cannot overlap or cross another wall already on the board.
• A wall can never completely seal a player off from their goal row. There must always be at least one open path to the far side for both pawns. Wallz checks this on every placement and simply won't let you make a move that traps someone.
• Because of that rule, walls can only ever slow an opponent down, not stop them. The whole skill is in spending walls so the detours add up.

Winning

First pawn to touch the opposite edge wins, full stop. Running your opponent out of walls doesn't win the game on its own; it just means they can no longer slow you. From there it is a straight race.

Clocks, ranked, and casual

Online matches use a chess-style clock. A time control written as “3+1” means each player starts with three minutes and gains one second back after every move. Let your clock hit zero and you lose, the same as being beaten to the goal.

Ranked games update your Elo rating and place you on the leaderboard; casual games don't touch your rating and don't even need an account. You can also play the computer at a difficulty you choose, or pass a phone back and forth in hot-seat mode. When you're ready, read the strategy guide to start winning more of them.