Sokoban (倉庫番, Sōko-ban) is a single-player puzzle game where the player pushes boxes around in a warehouse.
The objective is to push all boxes onto storage location(s), also called goals. The player can push a box in any direction as long as it is not obstructed by another box or a wall. The player may undo their moves an unlimited number of times. (using undo repeatedly "rolls back time")
The location of the boxes and the storage locations are set by the map's author and are always in the same location on a map. The game consists of multiple levels with varying difficulty determined by the number of boxes and the complexity of the solution to the puzzle.
The player's score is the number of moves they made to complete the map:
- Any successful directional move, including box pushes, count as one
- Undos also count as moves
- Map resets also reset the move counter
A lower score (fewer amount of moves) is better.
The game is playable through a console/terminal window with colorful Unicode characters representing each of the six possible states on any given playing field:
█(U+2588"Full Block") for the walls⨯(U+2A2F"Cross Product") colored red for the goals◼(U+25FC"Black Medium Square") for the boxes- colored yellow for boxes not on goals
- colored green for boxes on goals
☻(U+263B"Black Smiling Face") for the player character/figure- colored red if standing on a goal
When opening the game, the player can choose what mode they want to play in:
- Arcade mode: The levels are played in a set order, one after another.
- Free play: Choose one specific level from arcade mode to play.
- Custom maps: Input a path to any XSB map file.
If a saved state can be found for the selected level in free play or cutom mode, you can choose to load or delete the saved state.
If the player's score surpasses or matches any of those in the current leaderboard, the player can choose whether or not they want to appear on the leaderboard. If they want to appear, they are asked to input a nickname; the new list is saved and displayed.
The leaderboard may only contain a maximum of 10 entries and is 'first come, first served' when there is a tie.
- Directional input:
WASDor arrow keys- Game controls
- Menu navigation
- Accept:
EnterorSpace- Confirm choices in the menu
- Menu exit:
EscapeorBackspace- Exiting from the game (show leaderboard and exit menu):
Escape
- Exiting from the game (show leaderboard and exit menu):
- Map reset:
R - Move undo:
U