Goal. Win in any of three ways: move any piece into the opponent's
den (★), capture all enemy pieces, or leave the opponent with no legal moves.
RED moves first.
Making a move. Click (or tap) one of your pieces — its legal
destinations light up as green dots, or
red rings when the move captures — then click a
destination. Click elsewhere to deselect.
Ranks. Rat 1 < Cat 2 < Dog 3 < Wolf 4 < Leopard 5 <
Tiger 6 < Lion 7 < Elephant 8. A piece captures any enemy of equal or lower rank —
with one exception: the rat can capture the elephant, and the elephant
can never capture the rat.
River. Only the rat may swim (blue squares). A rat in the river can
only capture another rat in the river; no captures happen between land and river in
either direction. The rat captures the elephant from land only.
River jumps. The lion jumps across the river both
horizontally and vertically; the tiger jumps horizontally only. A jump
is blocked by any rat (either side) standing in the crossed river squares. Captures on
the landing square follow the normal rules.
Traps. A piece standing in one of the opponent's traps
(▲) defends with rank 0 — any enemy piece can capture it — but it still attacks with
its normal rank. Your own traps do not weaken you.
Den. You may never enter your own den.
Draws. A game is drawn if the same position occurs three times, or
after 200 plies (100 moves per side) without a result.
Controls. New Game — choose mode (Human vs AI / AI vs AI),
who moves first, and difficulty. ↩ — undo the last round.
⇅ — flip the board view (purely visual; it never changes the game).
⛶ — fullscreen. AI — switch difficulty at any time.
🔊 — toggle sounds.