The rules
WallRush is a race with one twist. Get your pawn to the far side of the board before your rival does, and on every turn choose: step forward, or drop a wall and send your rival the long way round.
Two pawns start on opposite edges of a 9×9 board. You play the amber (orange) pawn, which starts at the bottom on square e1. Your rival plays teal (blue-green) and starts at the top, on e9.
You are racing for any square in the top row. Your rival is racing for any square in the bottom row. The first pawn to get there wins.
Against the computer you always play amber. With a friend, one of you plays each colour.
On your turn you can step your pawn one square: up, down, left or right. Never diagonally, and never through a wall.
Glowing dots mark every square you can reach. Pick one, and your turn is over.
Stepping backwards is allowed. Sometimes it is the only way round a wall.
Your turn. Click or tap a glowing square to move your pawn.
When your rival stands right next to you, with no wall between you, you can’t step onto their square. You jump instead.
If there’s room behind them, you jump straight over and land on the square beyond. That’s two squares in a single move.
Your rival (teal) blocks the way. Find the dot that jumps over them.
If a wall (or the edge of the board) is right behind your rival, you can’t jump straight. Instead you may jump to either side of them, landing diagonally.
A wall between your rival and a side square blocks that jump too.
The wall behind your rival stops the straight jump. Try one of the two diagonal dots.
Instead of moving, you can place one of your ten walls. A wall is two squares long and sits in the gap between squares. No pawn can step across it, so your rival has to find a way round.
Each extra step your rival has to walk is a turn they spend going nowhere. But placing a wall also costs you a turn, so it only pays off when it adds two or more steps to their route.
Your rival (teal) needs 6 steps to reach the bottom. Pick a glowing bar to place a wall and see how much it slows them.
You can make a route longer, but you can never close the last one. After every wall, each pawn must still have some way to reach its goal row. If a wall would shut the last way through, the game refuses it and tells you why.
That rule is what keeps WallRush a race. Walls make the road longer. They never make it impossible.
Two reasons a wall is refused. It would shut a pawn in, or it overlaps or crosses a wall that is already down.
Your rival (teal) is boxed into the top-left corner. Try the red wall, then the other one.
The moment your pawn lands on any square of your goal row, you win. The move list marks it with a #: g9# means “moved to g9 and won”.
WallRush has no captures and no draw rule. A game ends when a pawn reaches its goal row.
Four people can play on the same board. Everything above still applies, with five changes.
The first pawn to reach its goal wins. There is a second game too: in the race to the centre all four pawns head for the middle square, with 5 walls each.
The full detail of both races is in the four-player rules. Strategy changes with four: a wall that slows one rival helps the other two. See four-player strategy.
Every game keeps a move list beside the board, written in a short notation. Here is how to read it.
| Written | What it means |
|---|---|
e4 | A normal step to square e4. |
Je6 | A straight jump over your rival, landing on e6. |
Xd5 | A diagonal jump, landing on d5. |
H-d4 | A horizontal wall at the bottom-right corner of d4. |
V-d4 | A vertical wall at the bottom-right corner of d4. |
g9# | A move onto the goal row. The # means the game is won. |
Columns run a to i from left to right, and rows run 1 to 9 from bottom to top. That’s why amber starts on e1 and teal on e9.
H-d4 lies under d4 and e4.V-d4 stands to the right of d4 and d3.Here are the first four rounds of a game. Each line is one round: amber’s move, then teal’s.
1. e2 e8 2. e3 e7 3. e4 e6 4. e5 Je4
In round 4, amber steps to e5, right in front of teal, and teal jumps over to Je4.
Want to go further? The WallRush strategy guides cover when to wall and when to race.
No. A pawn steps up, down, left or right. The only diagonal move is the diagonal jump, which opens up when a wall or the edge of the board stops a straight jump over your rival.
Yes. A pawn can step in all four directions. Backing up is sometimes the quickest way round a wall.
From then on you can only move your pawn. Your rival can keep placing walls until their own ten are gone.
No. Once a wall is down, it stays there for the rest of the game, so think before you place it.
Either it overlaps or crosses a wall that is already down, or it would shut a pawn in. The game tells you which, so you can try another spot.
On a computer, point at the gap between two squares until a wall appears under your pointer, then click. On a phone or tablet, drag a wall from the tray under the board and let go where you want it. You can also tap a piece in the tray to light up every spot it can go, then tap one. With a keyboard, press W, move the wall with the arrow keys, press R to turn it and Enter to place it.
WallRush is a Quoridor-style game: the same idea of racing pawns and placing walls. Read more on the WallRush and Quoridor page. Quoridor is a trademark of Gigamic, and WallRush isn’t affiliated with Gigamic.
Yes. Create a room and send your friend the link or the code, or pass one phone back and forth.
Yes. Play 4-player WallRush against three computers, find a quick match online, open a private room for up to three friends, or pass one device between four people. Each player has 5 walls, turns go clockwise and you can jump only one pawn. See playing with four and the four-player rules.