This page is under construction! so everything except historical information is subject to change :)
Game play
Sokoban was created as a computer game by Japanese Programmer "Imbayaki Hiroyuki". The game is "Copyright ©1982 Thinking Rabbit". More on sokoban history here. "Sokoban" or "Storeboy" is based on the rigourous work of a store boy who must complete his chores of pushing the boxes around. The store boy must bring all the boxes in each puzzle to the specified destinations or goals.
The destinations are not numbered so any box can go to any goal. Space is limited in the area so the boxes must tbe placed with care so that there is always room to push other boxes around. The store boy is not much sturdy so he can push only one crate at a time and can never pull anything.
The game is easy to understand and fun to play. The advance players want to minimise the moves and pushes needed to solve a puzzle so there is always something new even about a solved puzzle.
Levels
It is not as easy as it may sound. The task is really made difficult by the great mathematical minds like "Evgeniy Grigoriev" and "David W Skinner". These people try to make the job of the store boy as miserable as possible. There are a lot of groups on the Internet who care for Sokoban and devote some of their time thinking up levels/puzzles for this game.
The levels are simple ASCII or XML based so designing them is easy through computer applications for even by hand. Here is a list of all possible locations for items in sokoban for use with ASCII.
- Walls: #
- Blank Area: Space
- Goal: .
- Box/Carton/Object: $
- Store boy/warehouse guy/me/you: @
- Box on Goal achived: *
- Store boy standing on a goal: +
That is all one needs to create one's own custom levels. Although some sort of level creator comes with almost all sokoban applications you can create you own levels by hand or get inspiration from millions of puzzles/levels available on the Internet.
Sokoban Applications
The game is made enjoyable and addictive mostly by its controls... There are many good Freeware and Shareware Sokoban Application on the Intenet.
Finalsokoban by Yang Chao is one of the most recommended. It has a very nice interface, small in size (only 59KB!) and freeware to boot. Finalsokoban has a built-in level editor; you can create the levels graphically.
Sokoban++ is another application that I have used mostly for its great skin support and the large number of beautiful skins available. sokoban++ has a nice interface and the controls are easy to use. The game comes preloaded with original sokoban levels from Thinking Rabit Inc. and you can load more downloaded from the Internet or your custom designed levels.
Sokoban++ has the option to solve the level for you. This comes in handy if some particular puzzle is giving you headaches and you think, "The level designer must be nuts!!! there is no way for this to be solved!!!". There is no builtin puzzle solver but you need to configure another Sokoban application for this work.
Tse's Sokoban is a freeware. The program has comparatively low graphic and usablility apeal but it uses a solver engine based on Java Applet code to solve puzzles upto 12x10 and that contains upto 9 boxes.
For solving slightly bigger puzzles you can use this page.
Sokosave is a great application for playing squar, triangle or hexagonal sokoban puzzles.
Sokoban Alternatives
There are many puzzle games based on popularity of Sokoban. "Hexaban" Hexagonal Sokoban by "David W Skinner" is one the greatest thing that happened to Sokoban. It uses a hexagonal area for the store boy movement and puzzles are even more interesting.
Also there are triangle based "Trioban" sokoban puzzles to solve.
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