Talos

Talos is a quiet game of stones on a hex board.

Each board starts with a scatter of dark stones and a single white stone in the middle. On your turn you place one dark stone on any empty space. Then the white stone moves one space toward the edge, and it is good at finding the way out. Your job is to close every route before it gets there.

A game is six boards. Each one starts with fewer stones on the table than the last, so the room you have to work with shrinks as you go. The fewer stones you need to finish a board, the more points it is worth. Three escapes and the game ends early.

Nothing is timed. There are no lives to buy, no daily streaks, no notifications, no accounts, and no ads. Suggestions can be turned on in the settings if you want a nudge; they highlight every placement the solver considers strongest.

Features

• One rule: place a stone, the white stone moves. Learn it in ten seconds.
• Six-board sessions with a smooth difficulty curve inside each game.
• Three modes: Easy, Medium (x2 score), and Hard (x3 score, with sealed edges).
• Every board is generated fresh and checked by a solver so it is always winnable.
• Untimed. Think as long as you like.
• Optional suggestions that show every strongest placement, with no penalty.
• Light and dark boards, or follow the system setting.
• Original music and hand-recorded stone sounds, each with its own volume.
• Works offline and installs to the home screen as a web app.
• Free. No ads, no purchases, no engagement tricks.
• CC0 public domain. The entire game is one HTML file you can read, copy, or fork.

The name

Talos, in Greek myth, was a giant made of bronze who guarded the island of Crete. He walked the coastline three times a day and hurled stones at any ship that tried to land. He had one vein, sealed by a single nail at the ankle; when the nail was pulled, he was finished. Something is trying to reach the edge and get away; you guard the perimeter with stones; and one open gap is all it takes to lose.

Lineage

The rule set descends from Chat Noir (gamedesign.jp, 2007) and, further back, John Conway's Angel Problem (1982). Talos keeps the core idea and restates it as an abstract stone game, with generated boards, a solver that guarantees every board is winnable, and scoring that rewards economy.

Made by Kevin MacLeod for danger.academy.