Play Barricade online with friends

What is Barricade?

Barricade belongs to a family of abstract strategy games where pawns race across a square board while the players block each other with walls. There are no dice and no cards: once the game starts, everything depends on your choices.

Every turn is a small dilemma: step closer to home, or spend one of your few walls to make someone else's route longer? A wall can never shut a pawn in, so the game is about making the way home as long as possible for everyone but you.

How to play Barricade

1. Each pawn starts on one edge of the board and races to the edge across from it. With two players, red starts in the middle of the bottom edge and yellow in the middle of the top edge. Who moves first is drawn at random.
2. On your turn, do one thing: move your pawn one square up, down, left or right (never diagonally), or place a wall.
3. A wall is two squares long and goes in the grooves between the squares, right up to the edge of the board. Walls can't overlap or cross. You can block and slow anyone, but never wall a player off completely: there must always be a way to their goal, and the board only offers the walls that leave one. Once your walls are gone, you can only move.
4. If your pawn faces another pawn, you may jump straight over it. If a wall, the edge of the board or another pawn is behind it, you step diagonally past it instead.
5. The first pawn to reach any square of the edge across from where it started wins. In a race to the center, the first pawn to step or jump onto the center square wins.

Skipping and the blocking rule

You may skip your turn instead of moving, and if your time runs out, the turn simply passes. The exception: if your pawn stands in the way of a pawn that has no other way home, you can't skip, so move or place a wall. If your time runs out while you're blocking someone, your pawn steps out of the way, toward its own goal.

Race to the center

The host can set the goal to The center instead of the far side, in any mode. Every pawn then starts on the edge the same number of steps from the center square, so nobody starts nearer: from the corners with 2 to 4 pawns (8 steps away on 9×9, as far as the classic race) and two to an edge with 5 to 8 (6 steps away on 9×9). Teams and tournament matches start from opposite corners. The first pawn to step or jump onto the center square wins, and no wall may ever cut a pawn off from it.

Draws

If nobody has reached their goal after 60 moves for each pawn (75 on 11×11, 90 on 13×13), the game is a draw. Skipped and timed-out turns count as moves.

Barricade modes on Ping44

Two players always play the classic game. With three or more, the host picks a mode:

• Everyone for themselves (the default): each player has their own pawn, color and number. With 3 or 4 players, pawns start in the middle of the edges; with 5 to 8, up to two pawns share an edge. On 9×9, everyone has 7 walls with 3 players, 5 with 4, and 3 from 5 to 8 players. Bigger boards give more.
• Teams: red against yellow. Each team shares one pawn and its walls (10 on 9×9), and teammates take the team's turns in order.
• Tournament: players are paired for classic one-on-one matches, all played at the same time, and the winners meet in the next round until one is champion. With an odd number of players, one sits a round out. A drawn match is replayed with the other player starting, and a second draw is settled by a coin toss.

The host also sets:

• Goal: the far side (the classic game) or the center square.
• Board size: 9×9 (classic), 11×11 or 13×13.
• Walls per player: Auto, or 1, 3, 5, 7, 10, 15 or 20. Auto gives 10 each on 9×9, 12 on 11×11 and 15 on 13×13, or fewer when many play for themselves. In Teams, each team shares this many.
• Turn timer: 15 to 90 seconds per move, 30 by default.
• Auto-start next round: the next game begins 30 seconds after one ends, and the host can pause the countdown.

Scoring on Ping44

Barricade rewards winning big, not just winning.

• When a pawn reaches its goal, every pawn's distance is counted: the fewest steps it still needs to get home, going round the walls. The winner's is 0.
• The pawns are lined up from nearest to farthest, and each scores twice the distance at its mirror place in the line: the winner twice the farthest pawn's distance, the second twice the second-farthest's, and so on down to the last, who scores nothing. With distances 0, 1, 4 and 9, they score 18, 8, 2 and 0.
• Pawns the same distance from home score the same, the lower of their places. With two players, the winner scores twice the loser's distance. In Teams, every player scores their team's pawn's points.
• Won because everyone else left: 10 points (every player of a winning team too), as long as at least two moves were made.
• In a tournament, each match won scores 3 points and the champion scores 10 more. A draw scores nothing.

Points add up on the room's scoreboard across every game you play there.

Tips and strategy

• Count steps, not squares. A pawn's real distance is the shortest way round the walls. If you're ahead, run; if you're behind, wall.
• Walls late, not early. A wall right in front of the leader costs them the most. Early walls are easy to walk round, so keep a few for the end.
• Don't run out first. A player with no walls left can only move, and their rivals can build a long detour without fear of a reply.
• Mind the jump. Stepping right in front of another pawn lets it jump over you. Sometimes walling first is the better move.
• Play for points. The winner scores twice the farthest pawn's distance, so keeping a rival stuck far from home pays even when your win is safe.

How to start a game of Barricade on Ping44

1. Sign in at ping44.com and create a room. The host needs a free account; friends can join as guests just by picking a name.
2. Share the room's invite link, its 6-character code or its QR code.
3. In the lobby, choose Board games, then pick Barricade in Game settings.
4. Choose the mode, the goal, the board size, the walls and the turn timer.
5. Start the game. Anyone else in the room can watch as a spectator.

Afterwards, the host can start another round or switch to Four in a Row, Chess or the Property Game without anyone leaving the room. See all our board games.

Why play Barricade on Ping44

• Fair walls, every time. The server checks every step and every wall, so nobody can seal a pawn in or sneak in an illegal move.
• More than one on one. Up to 8 players on one board, two teams, or a tournament bracket.
• Your board, your rules. Pick the board size, the walls each player gets and how long each move can take.
• Easy to follow. The last wall and the last move are lit, and spectators follow every move live.
• Free and instant. Voice and text chat built in, no ads, no download: it runs in the browser on phones, tablets and computers.

Frequently asked questions