Glossary of Walls.gg terms
Every word used in the rules, the strategy guides and the interface, defined in plain English. If a term on the site is missing here, tell us on the contact page and we will add it.
- Board
- The 9×9 grid of squares. Pawns move between squares; walls sit in the grooves between them, so a full board has 8×8 possible wall slots in each orientation.
- Pawn
- Your piece. It starts in the middle of your home row and wins by reaching any square on the opposite row.
- Step
- A move of one square up, down, left or right. Diagonal steps are not legal, and you may not step through a wall.
- Wall
- A two-segment barrier placed between squares. Each player starts with ten and never gets them back. A wall blocks movement across it for both players.
- Blocking rule
- The rule that makes the game work: a wall may not be placed if it would leave either pawn with no legal path to its goal row. You may lengthen a route as much as you like; you may never seal it.
- Shortest path
- The fewest steps your pawn needs to reach its goal row given the walls currently on the board. Walls.gg shows this number live in Vs Bot mode.
- Tempo
- A unit of one move. A wall that adds two squares to your opponent's shortest path 'gains two tempo'. Most strategy in this game is tempo arithmetic.
- Race
- A position where neither side has a meaningful blocking option left and both simply walk. Whoever has the shorter path with the move wins.
- Funnel
- Two or more walls placed so the opponent's only remaining route runs the long way around. The signature attacking pattern of the game.
- Defensive wall
- A wall placed to protect your own route, or to make a damaging opponent placement illegal, rather than to slow them down.
- Wall economy
- How you budget your ten walls across the opening, middlegame and finish. Ending the game with unused walls is fine; running out early usually is not.
- Ranked
- Online games against other signed-in players. Only ranked games change your rating; bot, local and daily games never do.
- Rating
- Your ladder score, starting at 1000, calculated on the server from finished online matches so it cannot be edited from the browser.
- Room code
- The short code identifying an online room. Share the room link to invite a specific friend instead of using matchmaking.
- Rematch
- A new room created from a finished game. Both players are redirected automatically; if your opponent closed their tab you can offer a fresh code instead.
- Daily puzzle
- One generated maze per day, identical for every player, available in Easy, Normal and Hard. Solo — there is no opponent pawn to beat, only the route.
- Solve quality
- How close your solution was to the puzzle's optimal move count. Perfect, Great, Good and OK grades pay different rewards.
- Streak
- Consecutive days on which you completed the daily puzzle. Streaks add a bonus to XP and coins and reset if you miss a day.
- XP and level
- Experience earned from daily puzzles. Levels are a progress marker only and give no gameplay advantage.
- Coins and keys
- In-game currency earned from daily puzzles and spent in the shop on pawn skins and board themes. They cannot be bought with money and have no value outside the game.
- Cosmetic
- Any purely visual item — a pawn skin or board theme. Cosmetics never change movement, wall count or rating.
- Hint
- The Vs Bot helper that highlights the next step along your current shortest path. Useful for learning, disabled in nothing else.
- Replay
- A step-by-step playback of a finished bot game showing each wall the engine considered and why it chose one.
Ready to use them? Read the rules, the wall placement guide, or jump into the interactive tutorial.