Dash & Block

Two pawns on opposite edges of a board, and a stack of walls each. Your pawn is running for the far side. So is theirs.

On your turn you do exactly one of two things. Dash — move your pawn one square. Or block — lay a wall two squares long in the channel between squares, anywhere on the board, to make their trip longer.

There is one rule about where a wall may go: it can never shut a player out of the edge they are running for. However long the way round, there always has to be a way. Try to lay one that seals somebody in and the board turns it down and tells you why.

If the two pawns end up nose to nose, hop straight over.

That is the whole game. Spend your walls too early and you have nothing left when they round the last corner; hold them too long and they walk past you.

TWO PLAYERS, OR ONE

Pass the phone to the person opposite, or play the computer at Easy, Medium or Hard. Every level runs for home and every level will put a wall in your way — what changes is how far ahead it looks. Hard builds the second wall of a pair, which is the one that turns a detour into a real one. It can take either side, and the sides take turns opening a game, so it is worth playing both.

Rounds won are kept on each player's card, so a game can be one round or a whole evening of them.

THREE BOARDS

Nine squares across with ten walls each, which is the full-size game. Seven across with seven walls, which is what it opens on. Five across with five, which is over in a couple of minutes and is the one to learn on.

MAKE IT YOURS

Ten pawn colors and six board colors. Tap a player's card to change their name and their color; take the color the other player is using and the two of you swap rather than being told no.

The whole page washes toward whoever is to move, so whose turn it is is something you see rather than something you read.

A LIGHT THEME AND A DARK ONE

Not one inverted into the other — two designs, each drawn for the light it is in. The switch is in the header.

AIM BEFORE YOU COMMIT

A wall appears under your thumb the moment you touch a channel and only goes down when you let go, so you can slide it along and see exactly which two squares it will cover before you spend it.

NO CATCHES

No ads. Nothing to buy. No account, and no sign-in. The app asks for one permission — the one that lets it buzz when a pawn lands — and it has no internet access at all, so it works on a plane and nothing you do in it leaves the phone.

Take back a move with the undo button. Sound and vibration can each be turned off. How to play is under the question mark in the header. Your game, your colors and your score are still there when you come back.