About Sokoban
Sokoban is a warehouse puzzle where you push crates onto target squares. The catch is that you can only push, never pull, and only one crate at a time, so a careless push can leave a crate stuck for good. This version has seven hand-made levels of increasing difficulty.
How to play
- Move one square at a time. You cannot walk through walls or crates.
- Walking into a crate pushes it one square, as long as the square beyond it is empty floor or a target. You cannot push two crates in a row or push a crate into a wall.
- A level is solved when every crate is on a green target. A crate on a target is outlined in green.
- There are seven levels, played in order. After each one, Next level takes you on. After the seventh, Play again goes back to level 1.
- Every step counts as a move, whether or not you push a crate. Moves are shown for your interest but do not affect the score.
- Your score is the number of the highest level you have solved, so 7 is the maximum.
Controls
- Keyboard: the arrow keys or W, A, S and D move the warehouse keeper.
- Touch: swipe on the board, or use the arrow pad below it with mouse or touch.
- Undo takes back your last step, and can be pressed repeatedly to go back as far as you like. Restart resets the current level.
Tips and strategy
- Never push a crate into a corner that is not a target. It can never be moved out again.
- Be careful pushing a crate flat against a wall. Unless there is a target along that wall, the crate can only slide along it and may be stuck.
- Two crates side by side against a wall cannot be separated, so avoid making that shape unless both are already on targets.
- Before pushing, decide which crate goes to which target. Filling the target furthest from the open space first usually keeps the paths clear.
- Use Undo freely. Trying a push, seeing it fail and stepping back is how most Sokoban puzzles are solved.
Background
Sokoban was created by Hiroyuki Imabayashi and published by Thinking Rabbit in Japan in 1982. The name means warehouse keeper in Japanese. It has since become a standard puzzle in computer science research, where solving general Sokoban levels is known to be a very hard problem, and thousands of levels have been designed by fans.
Questions
- Can I skip a level?
- No. The levels are played in order, starting from level 1 each time the page loads.
- Is every level solvable?
- Yes. The seven levels are fixed designs, each checked with a solver.
- What if I get a crate stuck?
- Press Undo to step back, or Restart to put the level back to its starting position.