How to play sokoban
Sokoban is Japanese for “warehouse keeper”. Your job: push every box onto a goal square. It looks gentle. Then you push a box into a corner and have to start over — that moment is the whole game.
The three rules
| Walk | Move one square at a time with the arrow keys, WASD, a swipe, or the on-screen pad. |
|---|---|
| Push | Walk into a box to push it one square forward. You can never pull a box, never push two at once. |
| Home | The level is solved when every box stands on a goal square. Push count is your score — par is the intended solution. |
Controls: arrows / WASD / HJKL to move, U to undo, R to restart. On touch, swipe the board or use the arrow pad under it.
The four extra mechanics
Sokoban Park keeps the classic rules and adds one twist per level pack. Every level tells you which pack it belongs to, and the board shows each mechanic before you meet it.
| Mechanic | What it does | How to think about it |
|---|---|---|
| Ice tiles | Whoever steps on ice keeps sliding in that direction until something stops them. | Ask where you would stop, not where you tapped. Walls, boxes and holes all stop a slide. |
| Portals | Enter one portal, pop out of its twin — keeping your direction. | Portals come in pairs (matching dots). What matters is your exit direction, not the distance. |
| Thin ice | A cracked tile survives exactly one crossing. Whoever leaves it behind turns it into a hole. | Holes never reopen and block everything. Cross each crack at most once — plan the order. |
| One-way tiles | An arrow tile can only be entered moving in the arrow's direction — for you and for boxes. | They are one-way streets: useful shortcuts in, permanent walls out. |
Tips that transfer to every level
- Corners are forever. A box pushed into a corner (and off a goal) can never move again. The game flags deadlocked boxes so you can undo early instead of hunting for it.
- Push order beats cleverness. Most levels are solved by asking which box must move last, then working backwards.
- Undo is free. There is no move limit and no penalty. Try the risky line, then undo.
- Stars measure efficiency. Match the level's par push count for three stars; a bit over is still two. Replay to sharpen a solution.
- Hints replay the intended route. The hint button walks your box along the level's own solution — but only while you are still on that route. Strayed? Restart and follow.
Where to go next
Start with the Classic Grove pack on the home page, try today's daily puzzle, and when the 100 levels feel tame, build something worse in the level generator.