Kono

Overview

Kono — traditionally Five Field Kono — is a Korean racing game with one idea behind it: get your seven pieces onto the squares your opponent started on, before they do the same to you.

There are no captures. Nothing is ever removed from the board. Pieces move one square diagonally into an empty square, and that is the entire rule set.

What makes it tense is the size. The board is 5×5, and with seven pieces each that is 14 pieces on 25 squares — only eleven empty squares exist in the whole game. Every move you make consumes space that both players need, and since you cannot remove an obstruction, the only answer to a piece in your way is to go around it.

The board and the goal

Each side starts with seven pieces filling its home area: the whole back row of five, plus the two outside squares of the row in front of it.

Those seven squares are also your opponent’s target, and theirs are yours. Occupy all seven of their home squares and you win immediately.

There is no score and no material, because nothing is captured. It is a pure race — but a race on a board too small to run in a straight line.

How pieces move

One square, diagonally, into an empty square. That is all.

No jumping, no multi-square slides, no captures. Tap a piece, and the legal diagonal destinations are highlighted.

Diagonal-only movement has a consequence worth noticing early: a piece never changes the colour of square it stands on. A piece that starts on a dark square can only ever reach dark squares. So each of your seven pieces has its own fixed half of the board to work with, and a destination square it can never occupy is one you must send a different piece to.

No captures means blocking is everything

If your piece lands next to an opponent’s, nothing happens. You cannot jump it and you cannot take it.

So the question is never "can I take that?" but "can I stand where they need to be?"

A piece parked on a key square costs your opponent turns while they find another route — and with eleven empty squares on the whole board, another route may not exist. The strongest blocks sit where they interfere with more than one path at once.

But a blocking piece is a piece not advancing. That is the central tension: should this piece run, or should it stand still and cost them more than it costs me?

Tempo

With nothing to capture, there is no way to gain an advantage except by using turns better than your opponent.

Two moves that each advance a piece by one square can be worth completely different amounts. A good move does more than one job — advances a piece and opens a lane for the next one, or takes a square you needed anyway and sits in their way.

Count how many moves you still need to finish, and how many they need. That number, not the position, tells you whether to race or to block.

Strategy and tips

• Count both finishes. If you are ahead in the race, just race — blocking costs tempo you do not need to spend.
• Block on the squares that serve two routes. On a board this small those exist, and they are worth several turns.
• Do not congest yourself. Your own pieces block you exactly as effectively as theirs do, and with eleven empty squares it is easy to seal your own lane.
• Watch the diagonal colour. Each piece is locked to one colour of square for the whole game. Check early that you are sending the right pieces at the right destinations.
• Look one move past the landing. A square that is useful now is worthless if the piece has nowhere to go next turn.
• Switch to defence when they are close. The game ends the instant they fill your home squares, so a player two moves from finishing outranks anything you had planned.

The endgame

Late on, only a handful of squares matter and both sides are threading single pieces through gaps.

With no captures, you cannot clear the final obstruction — you have to out-position it. And because the board is nearly full, moving one of your own pieces can hand your opponent exactly the empty square they were waiting for.

That is why Kono gets harder as it goes on rather than simpler. The opening establishes routes; the endgame decides whether they stay open long enough to use.

The computer opponent

Three levels, and unlike some abstracts here they all genuinely search — the difference is depth:

• Vs AI — Easy looks one move ahead.
• Vs AI — Medium looks two.
• Vs AI — Hard looks three, and blocks noticeably more aggressively.

Because a block can cost several turns, even one extra ply of search shows up quickly. Hard will take a square you needed before you have realised you needed it.

Pass & Play

Local Pass & Play hands one device between two people. Kono suits it well — nothing is hidden, both players read the same board, and the whole contest is working out who runs out of space first.

Online multiplayer against a remote opponent is available in the Android and iOS apps. The browser version plays against the computer or a friend beside you.

Controls

• Tap a piece to select it; legal diagonal destinations are highlighted. Tap one to move.
• Choose the AI level or Pass & Play from the menu, change the piece theme, or restart at any time.

Seven pieces, diagonal moves, no captures, eleven empty squares. You do not beat your opponent by taking anything — you beat them by making sure they run out of useful space before you do.

If you liked Kono

Kōnane is the opposite extreme: every single move is a capture, and you lose when you run out of legal ones.

Checkers and Nine Men’s Morris are the familiar abstracts, and Lines of Action shares Kono’s idea that where your pieces are matters more than how many you have.