How to play Gonu

• Each player has 12 pieces. Take turns placing one at a time on any empty point of a 24-point board (three nested squares, corners and side-midpoints connected) — this is the first half of the game. The game's opening move is restricted to one of the outermost square's 4 corners.
• Line up 3 of your own pieces in a row — a "mill" — to capture an enemy piece. A point used in a capture is marked and locked for the rest of placement.
• Once all 24 pieces are placed, the second half begins: slide one piece per turn to an adjacent empty point, still hunting for mills.
• Win by reducing your opponent to 2 pieces, or leaving them with no legal move. This is the same family of game as the Western "Nine Men's Morris."

• Each player starts with 4 pieces lined up on their own edge of a 4×4 line board.
• Move one piece per turn, one step along a line.
• Trap an enemy piece between two of yours in a straight line to capture it.
• Win by reducing your opponent to one piece, or leaving them with no legal move.
• If 40 moves in a row (both sides counted) pass with no capture, the game is a draw.

• Same rules as Jul-gonu, one size bigger: 5 pieces each on a 5×5-point board.
• Move one piece per turn, one step along a line; sandwich an enemy piece between two of yours to capture it.
• Win by reducing your opponent to one piece, or leaving them with no legal move.
• If 40 moves in a row (both sides counted) pass with no capture, the game is a draw.

• The widest Jul-gonu-family board — 8 pieces each on an 8×8-point grid.
• Same sandwich-capture rules as Jul-gonu and Daseotjul-gonu, just with a lot more room to maneuver.
• Win by reducing your opponent to one piece, or leaving them with no legal move.
• If 40 moves in a row (both sides counted) pass with no capture, the game is a draw.

• 4 pieces each, clustered at opposite corners of a 4×4-point board.
• A normal move is one step — but a piece standing on one of the board's four corner "wheels" may instead spin and slide any distance in a straight line.
• A wheel slide that runs into an enemy piece captures it — the only way to capture in this game.
• Win by capturing every one of your opponent's pieces, or leaving them with no legal move.
• If 40 moves in a row (both sides counted) pass with no capture, the game is a draw.

• Players alternate placing one stone per turn on any empty intersection of a 15×15 board.
• Get 5 of your own stones in a row — any direction — to win. No captures.
• Choose Freestyle (any 5-or-more wins) or Standard (Renju), where the first player can't play certain "forbidden points" (double-three, double-four, six-or-more in a row) — the board marks them with an ×.
• 225 moves with no winner is a draw.

• Control the center. Central points connect to more lines, so a piece there has more places to move — and more lines along which to set up a capture.
• Watch where you walk. Moving a piece between two enemy pieces doesn't capture it — only the piece that just moved can trigger a capture. But check the reverse: don't hand your opponent a free sandwich on their turn.
• Don't trade blind. In the capture variants, swapping pieces evenly is rarely free — it usually opens a line for whoever moves next.
• In Cham-gonu, don't rush to form a mill during placement. A mill you can open and re-close later (by moving a piece out and straight back in) captures again and again — that's worth more than one early capture.

Every variant has a built-in computer opponent (no server, no download) with four difficulty levels. Easy mostly looks one move ahead; Master thinks several moves deep and plays a genuinely tough game. You can also choose to play first or second.