Introducing BattleStones

BattleStones is an app version of my board game Batalo™ (still available here), which was selected by GAMES Magazine as one of the 100 best games in 1992 and 1993. You win by getting one of your pieces onto your opponent’s base. The pieces move by hopping over their own team pieces or by sliding. Only the columns can capture opposing pieces.

Left-click a piece to select it, then left-click a highlighted space to move. Right-click to lift a piece and drag it (click again to drop it). Once you have moved a piece the robot will play against you (or you can click “Play Human” to turn off the robot).



I’ve programmed a simple “robot” to help you learn the game—play against friends and family for more of a challenge. Unlock advanced features like color overlays that show piece access, undo for moves, and piece setup by playing and winning games against the robot.

Mobile version now has zooming for playing on small screens (with mini-view of whole board).
Mac version has zoom, rotate, tilt, and pan viewing controls for the board: hold the right mouse button or use Z, X, Q, E, R, F, W, A, S, D keys. Window can be resized while playing or made fullscreen.

Kid-friendly and casually challenging.
Games usually average fifteen minutes.
No in-app purchases or advertising.

You can try out the game with this web player, which I’m using to beta-test new features (next up is controller support). The Unity3D webplayer will only run on a desktop browser—and probably only in Safari, Firefox, or Chrome (but not on a ChromeBook, yet).