Puzzle

ASCII Sokoban

Push each crate onto a target square on a tight grid, where a crate can only be pushed, never pulled.

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Every game plays locally in your browser. Nothing about your play is uploaded to a server. Your high scores are kept in this browser on this device only, and you can clear anything these games have saved from the privacy page.

Controls

Arrow keys or WASDWalk one square, pushing a crate ahead of you if one is there.
SwipeWalk one square, on a touch screen.
U or ZUndo the last move. Press again to keep stepping back.
SpaceReset the current level to its opening position.
RRestart the whole set from the first level.

How to play

  1. You are the @ sign. Walk onto a crate to push it one square in the direction you are moving, provided the square beyond it is clear.
  2. A crate can only be pushed, never pulled, so a crate shoved into a corner or against the wrong wall is stuck there for the rest of the level.
  3. Press undo to take back a push whenever a line of play goes wrong, or reset to return the level to its opening if a crate is truly jammed.
  4. A level is solved when every crate sits on a target square. Clear the last level to finish the set, scored on your total moves.

About Sokoban

Sokoban is the purest planning puzzle there is. You push crates, one at a time, onto marked squares, and the single asymmetry in the rules is the whole game: you can push a crate but never pull it. That means a crate shoved into a corner, or flat against a wall it needed to come away from, is stuck for good, and the puzzle is lost long before you notice. Every move is really a decision about moves you have not made yet.

This version is a short run of handmade levels that build from a single push to a few that need a plan before you touch anything. Undo takes back a push as often as you like, so you can explore a line and retreat, and reset returns the current level to its opening if you have truly jammed it. Your best is the fewest total moves you have used to finish the whole set, kept in this browser.

Frequently asked questions

It stays there. A crate can only be pushed, never pulled, so a crate wedged into a corner cannot be moved again in either direction. If that crate was not already on a target, the level can no longer be solved, and your best move is to undo or reset rather than keep playing a lost position.

No. Undo steps back through every move you have made this level, one push at a time, as far as the opening position. You can explore a line of play, back all the way out of it, and try something else without losing the level, which is how most of the harder puzzles are meant to be solved.

By total moves across the whole set. Every step you take, pushing or not, adds one to the count, and finishing the last level records that total. Because fewer is better, a run that reaches the end without wasted walking beats one that solved every level but wandered to get there.

While you are here

BNS Data Tools

The same team builds a set of free, privacy-first data and developer utilities - formatters, converters, validators and calculators - that run in your browser the same way these games do.

Open BNS Data Tools