Sokoban – Play Online for Free

In Sokoban you are a warehouse worker pushing crates onto marked spots. He cannot pull them, and he only ever moves one at a time. The Japanese name 倉庫番 roughly means warehouse keeper. The game was created by Hiroyuki Imabayashi, who programmed it as a hobby in 1981 and released it with his company Thinking Rabbit of Takarazuka, officially in December 1982. Today the name is a trademark of the Japanese company Falcon.

Sokoban became a bestseller in Japan, reached the United States as "Soko-Ban" in 1988, and later appeared on the Game Boy as Boxxle. Computer scientists have even proved that deciding whether any given warehouse can be solved is among the hardest problems of its class. You can play Sokoban here for free in your browser, with no sign-up: our online Sokoban has three levels with two to four crates, and every warehouse can be solved.

Push, Never Pull: Rules, Controls and Tricks for Sokoban

A warehouse is solved as soon as a crate stands on every golden target ring. A few strict rules apply:

• Walking and pushing: the worker steps one square up, down, left or right on the floor. If a crate stands there with free floor behind it, he pushes it one square further.
• No shortcuts: he does not move two crates in a row, he cannot walk through walls, and he can never pull a crate. Diagonal steps do not exist either.
• On the target: a crate on a target ring glows green. If it is in the way there, you may push it off again.
• Controls: the arrow keys move the worker on a computer, and so do W, A, S and D. On a phone you swipe across the board, one step per swipe.
• Tap and click: a tap on free floor sends the worker there by the shortest way. Tap a crate right next to him and he pushes it one square. Tap a square in the same line behind it and he pushes it all the way there, as long as the path is clear.
• Undo and Restart: "Undo" takes back the last push along with the walk after it, as do Backspace, Z and Ctrl+Z. "Restart" or the R key resets the warehouse to the beginning after a quick question.
• Levels: Easy has two crates, Normal three and Hard four, and every extra crate usually means more pushes for the solution. Each level keeps its own warehouse, so you can switch at any time and pick up later.
• Counters: above the warehouse you see the number of the level, your moves and pushes, and how many warehouses you have solved on that level. After you solve one, the game tells you whether it could have been done with fewer pushes.
• New Level: after a solve, "Next Level" or Enter brings up the next warehouse. The "New Level" button swaps it at any time and asks first if you have already moved.
• Saved: your progress stays in your browser. A warehouse only comes back after you have seen all 300 of its level.

Most warehouses are lost to a single careless push. These tricks make that happen less often:

• Corners are traps: a crate in a corner without a target ring can never get out again, because the worker cannot get behind it from any side.
• Careful along walls: a crate lying against a wall can only be pushed along it. It only leaves the wall where the wall has a gap. If that stretch of wall ends in a corner at both ends and has no target on it, the crate is lost.
• Never two side by side against a wall: two crates next to each other along a wall block each other, and neither one will budge again. The same goes for a square of four crates, or of crates and walls.
• Fill from the back: when several targets lie one behind the other in a corridor, the first crate belongs all the way at the back. Otherwise it blocks the way for all the others.
• Look before you push: before your first move, think about which crate goes to which target and which one is in the way. Often a crate that does not arrive first has to be moved aside first.
• Leave room to maneuver: park crates that are in the way on open floor rather than in narrow corridors. There you can reach them later from several sides.
• Undo instead of starting over: when you notice a crate is stuck, take back the last pushes instead of restarting the whole warehouse. And if you solved it with more pushes than needed, a second try with "Replay" is worth it.

Corridors, Grids, Tiles: Five Brain Teasers for After the Warehouse

If you still feel like thinking after the last target ring, here are some fitting counterparts:

• 2048: there is pushing here too, though all number tiles slide in one direction at once. Equal numbers merge, and planning ahead takes you step by step up to 2048.
• Nonogram: yet another puzzle from Japan. Numbers at the edge give the length of the filled blocks in every row and column, and your deductions slowly reveal a picture.
• Minesweeper: as in Sokoban, a single wrong step can cost you the round. The digits on the board reveal how many mines are hidden around them.
• Falling Cubes: order in a tight space matters here as well. Falling shapes need to land without gaps so that full rows disappear.
• Chess: planning several moves ahead on a board of 64 squares, against a computer that punishes every hasty decision.