The goal
Two walkers cross a high moor, raising cairns. Slate carries blue-grey stones, Amber carries warm ones. Each starts with 15 stones and the moor is a 5×5 grid of cells.
You win the moment a stack is four stones tall with your stone on top. That is a finished cairn.
Stacks and who holds a cell
- Stones pile up on a cell. The stack is drawn side on, lowest stone at the bottom.
- The stone on top holds the cell, whatever is underneath. A cell's ring is drawn in the colour of whoever holds it.
- A stack three tall is one stone short of a cairn. Those cells are marked, because the next stone placed on one ends the game.
Your turn: drop or carry
- Drop: take one stone from your supply and put it on an empty cell, or on top of a stack you hold. That is one stone gone from your supply for good.
- Carry: pick up the top 1, 2 or 3 stones of a stack you hold and walk that many cells in a straight line: up, down, left or right, never diagonally, never off the moor. You leave one stone on every cell you enter, in the order you picked them up.
Because the stones leave your hand from the bottom of the pile, the last cell always gets your own stone, and any enemy stones in the pile are dropped along the way, handing those cells to them. Carrying a mixed stack is how you spend it, and how you can give a cell away.
Carrying the whole stack leaves the cell empty. Carrying only part of it leaves the rest behind, and whatever is on top of the leftovers now holds that cell.
How a game ends
- A cairn: a stack reaches four with your stone on top. You win at once.
- Out of stones: the moment a walker places their last stone, the moor is counted.
- Nothing to do: if the walker to move has no legal turn, the moor is counted.
- The count goes to whoever holds more cells. Equal is a draw. Stalling does not help: the count still happens.
On this screen
- Tap an empty cell to drop a stone there.
- Tap a stack you hold to pick it up. The cells you can reach are ringed, each with the number of stones that walk there. Tap a ringed cell to see exactly which stones land where, then tap it again (or ✓) to go.
- With a stack picked up, Drop a stone here adds one from your supply to that same stack instead.
- A ★ marks a move that finishes your cairn. A red corner marks a cell the other walker can finish next turn.
- The ⋯ menu has Undo, Game info (cells held, stones left, the log) and New game.
- ⋯ → Play a friend online gives you a link to send. Undo and the computer are off in online games.
Tips
- Never build a stack of three the other walker can reach: they will finish it and win.
- Walking one stone onto a cell they hold takes it from them and costs you no supply.
- Stones in hand are time. When you are ahead on cells, spending your last stone ends the game on the spot.
Computer levels
Easy looks one move ahead and often misses what you are up to. Normal looks three moves ahead. Hard looks three moves ahead too, but keeps following the line whenever a stack is one stone from a cairn.