He does not play to win. He plays to watch you choose.
Mankind has climbed this tree for as long as it has stood. Not one has reached the canopy.
Will you be the first?
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Real strategy games, centuries apart, folded into one climb. Three are open to practice. The fourth is Māra's alone.
Every opponent plays at full strength. See how hard, and test your own Game IQ →
One king and four defenders against eight attackers on a 7×7 board. Every piece slides like a rook, any distance, no jumping. Only the king may stand on a corner or the centre throne. A piece is captured when an opponent's move pins it between two hostile squares — walking into that trap yourself is always safe. The king needs three hostile sides to fall, and only the move that closes the third side counts. Defenders win by walking the king into any corner; attackers win by trapping him or leaving the defenders with no legal move.
Four tigers against twenty goats on a 5×5 grid of lines. Goats place one at a time and can't move until all twenty are down; tigers can move or jump a goat from the first turn. A tiger jumps in a straight line over one adjacent goat into the empty point beyond, removing it. Tigers win by taking five goats. Goats win by trapping every tiger so none can move, or by surviving forty-four moves without a capture once the herd is fully placed.
Invented by Walter Zamkauskas, the youngest game here by twelve centuries. Each side moves one piece like a chess queen, then fires an arrow from its new square, also queen-style, into any empty square in reach. That square burns for the rest of the game. There's no capturing — only vanishing room. The last player able to move wins; there is no draw.
One more strategy game waits at the top of the tree, played only against Māra himself once all six stations are cleared. Nobody unlocks it by practicing.
Pick a game. Nothing here is tracked against anyone but you.
Named in Irish poetry a thousand years before chess reached the island. Eight hunters, one king, one run for the corner.
Carved into temple steps and played for centuries. Four tigers hunt. Twenty goats smother. Neither side plays the same game.
The youngest game here by twelve centuries, and the only one invented by a named person. Move, then burn a square forever.
How close your moves are to the best move available — the one number that sums up your whole season.
Six measures, drawn from how accurately you play. Games below show which ones they exercise most.
These numbers are yours alone. They stay on your device unless you choose to share them, and they are never compared against anyone else.
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