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Move a builder, then raise a block beside it. Climb three storeys and you win — but every block you lay is one your rival can climb too.
You and your rival each have two builders on a five by five board. A turn is always two things in order: move one builder to a neighbouring square, then add one block to a square next to where it landed.
You may climb at most one storey at a time, but you can drop down as many as you like. Blocks stack from one to three, and a fourth block becomes a dome that nobody can stand on. Squares with a builder on them cannot be moved into or built on.
Step onto a third storey and you win immediately — that move needs no build. You also win if your rival is left with no legal move at all, which is how many games actually end: walled in and out of height.
Tap a builder to select it, tap a marked square to move, then tap a neighbouring square to build. Tapping the builder again cancels. Your score is your win streak, and the search looks deeper as the streak grows.
The block you place is not yours. This is the first thing to internalise and the hardest: every square you raise is a step for whoever reaches it first, and often that is your rival, because they move right after you. Before laying a block, look at whether it sits next to one of their builders rather than only next to yours.
That makes the dome your main weapon. Building a fourth level on a square kills it for both sides, and a dome placed next to an enemy builder standing on level two is worth more than any climb of your own — it removes one of the very few squares from which they could win. Late in a tight game the whole contest is often just a race to dome the last approachable third storey.
Height is not only about winning, it is about mobility. A builder on level two can step down to zero, one or two, and up to three; a builder on the ground can only reach zero and one. That asymmetry means a high builder is hard to trap and a low one is easy, so getting one worker up early pays twice — as a threat and as freedom.
Most losses are not climbs, they are suffocations. Watch the count of squares your two builders can still reach; when that falls to two or three you are one clever build away from having no legal move and losing on the spot. Keep your builders apart rather than adjacent, because a pair standing side by side share their escape squares and can be sealed off with a single well-placed dome.