How to play
Lines of Action is a connection game played on an 8 × 8 board. Black’s 12 pieces start on the top and bottom edges, White’s 12 on the left and right edges. Black moves first. The goal is not to reach anywhere: it is to bring all of your pieces into one connected group, where every piece touches another of your pieces along a side or a corner.
How a piece moves. Choose a piece and a direction (any of the eight). Count every piece on that whole line, both colours, in both directions, including the piece itself. That number is exactly how far the piece must travel. A line with three pieces means a move of three squares.
- You may jump over your own pieces.
- You may not jump over an enemy piece.
- You may land on an enemy piece and capture it, but never on your own.
- You may not move off the board.
Tap a piece to see its legal destinations, then tap one. Enemy pieces you can capture are ringed in red.
Winning. As soon as a move leaves one side with all its pieces connected, that side wins. A single remaining piece counts as connected. If a move connects both sides at once, the player who moved wins. If a capture leaves the opponent connected, the opponent wins. A player who has no legal move loses. After 300 moves the game is a draw.
At the top, choose your Opponent. Against the Computer you play Black and can pick Easy, Medium or Hard. Choose Friend to play two people on one device; the strip of the player to move lights up. The status line shows the pieces each side has left. Hint shows a good move, and Undo takes back one move against a friend, or your move together with the computer’s answer.
Strategy
- Head for the centre. Pieces in the middle are close to everything, so they connect faster and block the opponent’s lines.
- Count before you move. Every piece you or your opponent moves changes the length of other moves on that line. A piece that was safe can become capturable because a line got longer.
- Captures cut both ways. Taking an enemy piece reduces the number of pieces they need to connect. Only capture when it breaks their shape or saves yours.
- Block with your body. An enemy piece cannot jump over you. Standing in the path of their long move is often better than running.
- Leave stragglers for last. A far-away piece decides the game. Bring it toward the group early, while the lines are still long enough to move it quickly.
The computer measures how spread out each side is and how many groups it forms, and searches a few moves ahead. In our tests the hard level beat the easy level in every game between them.
