Short answers first. The full rules are on the how to play page, and there is a separate strategy guide once you know them.
MazePawn is a free two-player abstract strategy game played on a nine-by-nine grid. Each player races a pawn to the opposite side of the board while spending ten walls to lengthen the other player's route. A game takes about five minutes.
You win by moving your pawn onto any square of the row on the opposite side of the board from where you started. There are no captures and no draws — because neither player can ever be completely blocked, somebody always arrives first.
About five minutes. The board is small, a game is usually decided in twenty to forty turns, and there is no setup — which is why it works as a game you play several times in a sitting rather than once.
Ten each. A wall you place is gone for good and cannot be picked back up, so the supply is the real constraint of the game. Each wall is two squares long and sits in the groove between squares.
No, and this is the rule the whole game balances on. A wall may slow an opponent down, but it may never leave them with no route at all. Any wall that would completely trap either player is refused before it lands.
It applies to you as well as to them, which catches people out: a wall that would seal off your own route is refused just as firmly.
Only in one situation. Pawns normally step one square up, down, left or right. If you are face to face with your opponent and a wall or the board edge sits directly behind them, you may jump diagonally to either side of them instead.
You jump over them. Pawns never share a square and never block each other for long: standing face to face, you may jump straight over your opponent and land on the square beyond, moving two squares in one turn.
This is why trying to block someone with your own pawn does not work — it hands them a free extra square.
No. On your turn you either move your pawn or place a wall, never both. That trade is the core of the game — every wall you place is a turn you did not spend walking towards the far side.
No. Walls are permanent for the rest of the game, and they belong to nobody once placed — a wall blocks you exactly as much as it blocks your opponent. That is the most common way a new player loses.
Yes. MazePawn is free in your browser at mazepawn.com, with no download and no payment. You can play the computer, work through the tutorial, solve puzzles, or play another person online.
No. You can open the site and play immediately without signing in. An account is only needed if you want an online rating, a game history that follows you between devices, or a friends list.
Yes, at six strengths, and it runs entirely on your device — so it works with no network connection at all. There is also a ladder of bots to work up through, plus puzzles and a post-game review that grades your moves.
Not in the app stores yet. MazePawn runs in a phone browser today and can be added to your home screen from there, which gives you a full-screen icon without an install.
Only in that both are abstract strategy games with no luck and no hidden information. MazePawn has one piece per side, no captures and a five-minute game, so it is far quicker to learn — the depth comes from the walls, not from the pieces.
Nine squares by nine squares, eighty-one in total. Each pawn starts on the middle square of its own back row, and walls sit in the grooves between squares rather than on the squares themselves.
At mazepawn.com, free, in any browser, with no account needed to start.