Zoridor

About the game

Zoridor is a quiet, clever board game for two, here against the computer. Each side has one pawn and ten walls. Your dark pawn starts in the middle of the top row and has to reach any square of the bottom row; the computer's red pawn starts at the bottom and heads for the top. Whoever gets across first wins.

On your turn you do one of two things. You can move your pawn one square up, down, left or right. Or you can place a wall, a bar two squares long, in the gaps between the squares, to block a path. Walls cannot cross each other, and no wall may cut a pawn off completely: there must always be at least one way through for both players. That rule is what makes the game interesting. You are not trying to lock your opponent in, only to make the road longer, while keeping your own short.

When the two pawns meet face to face, the one whose turn it is can jump over the other, which can turn a race around in a single move. The panel on the right shows how many walls each player has left, one yellow bar per wall.

The rules are those of the board game Quoridor; Zoridor is an independent version written in Zig by Ringtail Software, with its own simple wooden-board look. The author also made a version for the terminal.

Playing it here

The game runs in the page and needs a mouse or a touch screen. The download is under 30 KB. Every move is written to the Game Log box below the board as a short text code: copy it to keep a game, paste it back and press one of the load buttons to continue from that position, playing first or second.

Controls

Tips

Do not rush your walls. Ten walls go fast. A wall placed early is easy to walk around; one placed when the red pawn is close to its goal can cost it several moves.

Count both paths. Before placing a wall, count how many moves each pawn needs. A wall is good if it adds more steps to the red path than any wall the computer can answer with.

Keep a way out. The computer places walls too. Avoid walking into a corridor that a single wall could turn into a long detour.

Use the jump. If the pawns are face to face and it is your turn, jumping over gains a square.

Credits and licence

Zoridor was made by Ringtail Software Ltd. and released under the MIT licence. The page around the game is our version of the author's web page, with the texts also in Portuguese. Quoridor is a trademark of Gigamic; this game is not affiliated with it. The licence text, the source and the build script are linked from this page.

FAQ

Which pawn is mine? The dark one, starting at the top. You move first.

Why can I not place a wall here? Walls cannot overlap, and a wall may never leave either pawn without any path to its goal.

Can I play against a friend? Not in this web version: the second player is the computer.

How do I save a game? Copy the code from the Game Log box. To continue, paste it back and press a load button.