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Wall Race Strategy: Counting Steps and Spending Walls Well

Updated October 2026

Wall Race looks like a maze game, but underneath it is a counting game. Both pawns are always some number of steps from home, and every turn either shortens your own count or lengthens the computer's. The player who keeps that arithmetic in their favour wins. This guide explains the board and the rules exactly as the game implements them, shows how the computer decides when to build, and turns that into a practical plan for long win streaks.

The board, the walls and the turn order

The board is seven squares by seven. Your blue pawn starts in the middle of the bottom row and wins by touching any square of the top row; the red pawn starts in the middle of the top row and heads for the bottom. Each side has eight walls, and the counters are printed next to the board: the computer's above it, yours below it. You always move first.

A wall covers the edge between two pairs of squares, so it is two squares long. Walls cannot overlap and cannot cross each other in an X, and the game refuses any wall that would leave either pawn without a route to its goal row.

Placing a wall takes two taps. Tap near the edge you want to block, anywhere from the thin strip between two squares to about a third of a square into either of them, and a see-through preview of the wall appears on the nearest edge, with "Tap the wall again to place it" below the board. Tap the preview again to build it and end your turn; tap somewhere else to pick a different edge or to cancel. The wall runs two squares along that edge, extending toward the side of the edge you tapped (the left half of a horizontal edge extends left, the right half extends right, and likewise up or down for vertical edges), and flips to the other side when that is the only legal option. If neither placement is allowed, no preview appears and it is still your turn. A tap inside a highlighted square always moves your pawn, so to wall an edge of one of those squares, tap the strip itself or the neighbouring square's side of the edge.

When the two pawns stand face to face, the pawn whose turn it is can hop straight over the other. If a wall or the board edge sits directly behind the opponent, the straight hop is not offered; instead you may step onto one of the squares beside the opponent. The highlighted markers always show every legal step, so check them before planning around a jump.

Think in race margin, not in walls

At the start both pawns are six steps from home, and you move first, so a pure footrace is yours by one move. Everything after that is about the margin. A useful way to count it is simple: subtract your shortest distance from the computer's, then add one if it is your turn. Positive means you win a straight race from here.

That count tells you what a wall is worth. Placing one costs you a whole turn, which is one step of margin. So a wall that adds exactly one step to the computer's route and none to yours only breaks even. A wall becomes a real gain when it adds two or more steps to the opponent's path than to your own. Before you build, count both paths after the wall, not just the opponent's: a wall that stretches the computer's route by three but yours by two is a wasted turn.

How the computer decides to build

The computer looks one move ahead using shortest-path distances. On each turn it checks every legal wall and scores it as the number of steps it adds to your path minus the number it adds to its own. It only seriously considers building when it is not clearly winning the race: if your distance is equal to or shorter than its own, it places its best wall when that wall gains at least one step; if it is one step ahead, it builds only for a gain of two or more, and less often. Otherwise it steps along its shortest path.

Its skill also changes with your streak, in four tiers. In your first two rounds it builds when its rule says so only 40 percent of the time and makes a completely random move 26 percent of the time. Rounds three to five raise that to 70 percent and cut random moves to 12 percent. Rounds six to nine use 85 and 5 percent. From your tenth round onward it builds 95 percent of the time and errs only 2 percent of the time, and it does not get stronger after that.

Two consequences matter. First, because you start one tempo ahead, the computer is "behind" from move one, so it tends to wall early and spends its supply quickly. Second, it never plans further than one move. It does not anticipate your walls, does not set up traps that pay off later, and does not save walls on purpose.

What our simulation says about running versus building

We replayed thousands of rounds against the game's own decision code. A player who never builds and always takes a shortest step won about 75 percent of rounds against the opening tier, but only about 24 percent at the second tier, 5 percent at the third and under 1 percent at the top tier. Against an opponent that walls you, running alone stops working fast.

A player who used the same step-counting wall rule as the computer, but without random mistakes, did much better: roughly 95 percent at the first tier, 80 percent at the second, 73 percent at the third and 66 percent at the top tier, in our simulation. Rounds also got longer, around 50 moves by the two sides combined instead of about 20, because both sides spent most of their walls. The lesson is clear: you have to build, and you have to choose walls by counting.

One more result surprised us. A third player who refused every wall worth only one step, waiting for two-step walls instead, won about 82 percent at the first tier but only about 36 percent at the second. When you are behind, a break-even wall is not a waste: it stops the computer from converting its lead, and it changes the board so that the next good wall often appears. Waiting for a perfect wall usually means watching the red pawn walk home.

Where walls pay the most

Managing your supply of eight

Because the computer spends its walls eagerly when it feels behind, a long round often reaches a stage where it has none left. From that moment it can only run, and you can read its path completely. That is the best time to have walls in hand. A good habit is to build only when you are behind or level on the margin, never when you are already winning the race, and to keep two or three walls back whenever the count allows it. When the computer's counter reaches zero, every remaining wall you own is a guaranteed tempo or better against an opponent that can no longer answer.

Be careful with walls near your own pawn. The legality check only guarantees that some route exists; it does not guarantee that route is short. It is easy to build a box that the computer exploits by sealing the last short exit, leaving you a long detour.

A plan for a long streak

  1. Open by stepping forward. You are ahead by a tempo, so let the computer spend first.
  2. After each of its walls, recount both distances. If you are still ahead on the margin, keep running.
  3. When you fall behind, look for a wall that gains two or more steps. If none exists, take the best one-step wall rather than none.
  4. Hold walls for the endgame, especially once the red counter is empty.
  5. Treat the tenth round onward as one steady difficulty. The computer stops improving there, so a reliable counting routine carries over round after round.

One loss ends the run, so your streak is your score. It is saved on your device and can be sent to the Hall of Fame from the game-over card.

▶ Play Wall Race Race to the far row and outbuild the computer.