How to play
Wall Race is a race with obstacles. Each player has one pawn and ten walls. Red starts at the bottom edge and must reach the top row; Blue starts at the top and must reach the bottom row. Red moves first.
On your turn do one of two things.
- Move your pawn one square up, down, left or right, as long as no wall is in the way. Tap a highlighted square.
- Place a wall. Walls are two squares long and sit in the grooves between squares. Tap the small crossing point between four squares and choose Horizontal or Vertical. The wall is centred on that point.
Wall rules. Walls may not overlap, may not cross each other at the same point, and may not be placed on top of a pawn. Most important: a wall may never seal off a pawn completely. Each pawn must always have at least one path to its goal row, however long. The game only offers legal placements.
Jumping. If the enemy pawn stands directly next to yours, you may jump straight over it to the square beyond. If a wall or the board edge blocks that square, you may instead jump diagonally to either side of the enemy pawn.
Winning. The first pawn to reach any square of its goal row wins. If a game reaches 200 moves, the pawn with the shorter path to its goal wins; equal paths are a draw.
At the top, choose your Opponent. Against the Computer you play Red 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 how many walls each player 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
- Count steps, not squares. What matters is the length of the shortest path for each pawn. A wall is worth placing only if it lengthens your opponent’s path more than yours.
- Save walls for the second half. Early walls are easy to walk around. Walls placed near the opponent’s goal, when their path is already narrow, cost them many steps.
- Build corridors, not fences. A single long detour forced by two or three walls working together is worth more than three scattered walls.
- Do not get walled in. The game never lets a path be sealed completely, but a detour of ten extra steps is almost as bad. Keep an eye on your own escape routes when you advance into narrow places.
- Use the jump. Meeting the enemy pawn head on lets you hop two squares in one move. Sometimes stepping next to the opponent is faster than going around.
The computer measures both shortest paths after every candidate move, keeps the walls that hurt you the most, and searches a few moves ahead. In our tests the hard level beat the easy level in every game between them.
If you like racing games with blocking, try Halma or Hex next.
If you enjoy Wall Race, try Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) or Accordion Solitaire next.
