Open table
A fresh deal every time you sit down.
House rules
Starlane Marbles
Ten marbles a side on a six-pointed star of 121 holes. Step to a neighbouring hole, or jump over any marble into the empty hole beyond and keep jumping, then hop your whole point across to the opposite tip before the computer does. One hop chain is one move. Daily is a medium opponent, weekly is hard, and a game with no progress for sixty turns is scored on how far each side still has to go.
- Room
- Boards
- Game
- Star-board versus AI
- Made for
- 1985
Play Starlane Marbles
Free, no sign-up. Mouse, touch or keyboard.
How to play
- Click a marble, then a green dot, or drag it.
- Arrows walk the holes, Enter or Space pick up and place, X cancels.
- U undo, H hint, Q end.
- P to pause.
On touch
- Tap a marble, then a green dot.
- Long hops show every hole you can reach, so one tap lands the whole chain.
- Undo, Hint and End sit along the bottom.
Take as long as you like. Pause any time with P; calm mode turns off every flash and shake.
Maker’s note
Star-board hopping games were a fixture of mid-eighties family cupboards. Ours is drawn in code: turned wooden marbles on a green baize star under a lamp, and a computer opponent that counts distance, plans a few moves ahead and keeps its stragglers moving. Daily play is a medium opponent, weekly is hard, and free play lets you pick Easy, Medium, Hard or two players on one device (two-player games are unranked). Win with fewer moves and a bigger lead for more points; every undo or hint costs points. Each move is stored as where a marble started and where it landed, so the server replays the whole game, the computer's replies included, before it counts.
The Eracade workshop
Target scores
- 140
- 290
- 3150
- 4210
- 5270
- 6320
- 7370
- 8410
Each target is a step up. Reach the last one and you have outplayed the workshop.
In the Boards room
Board and tile games across a quiet table, one move at a time.
Your hands
Your best ten are kept in this browser with your three initials. Nothing is uploaded unless you submit a ranked hand, so clearing site data clears the list.
