Gomoku

Gomoku — Five in a Row — is the game you can teach in one sentence and lose at for years: take turns dropping stones on a fifteen-by-fifteen board, and the first to line up five in an unbroken row, in any direction, wins. Its depth hides in the threats. An open three, a row of three with both ends free, forces your opponent to answer; an open four is a win they cannot stop, so the whole game is a race of building threats while blocking theirs, always watching both ends of every line since a four sealed on one side can still stretch out the other. The move that wins games is the fork — two threats made at once, because your opponent can only block one — and the move that loses them is the single missed block against an enemy four. Play the computer at Easy, Medium or Hard, or pass and play a friend on the same screen; Black moves first, a small edge worth trading between games. Free in your browser, no download, record saved locally.