The game

• A 22x22 board and two ways to win: five in a row, or capture five pairs of your opponent's pieces.
• Every move attacks and defends at once. Flank two enemy pieces to capture them.
• Pinch to zoom and pan the board; tap to place.

Ways to play

• Play vs AI on four difficulty levels: Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert. Expert reads your best reply before it commits, so it sees the traps.
• Pass & Play with a friend on one device.
• Play online through Game Center: real-time or turn-based matches.
• Match by anything for the fastest game, or match by your theme for identical worlds.

Make it yours

• Eight themed worlds: Space, Feudal Japan, Dungeon, Ocean, Undead, Western, Desert, Classic.
• You see the whole game in your own theme, board, pieces, and music, even against an opponent playing in a different world.
• Pick any piece from a theme's roster for each side, plus one of 12 color combos including the dark Midnight and Forest pairs.
• Four piece types (Flat, Chip, Half, Tall) and two finishes (Standard, 3D).
• 12 or more background scenes per theme, four neutral backdrops, and board surfaces you can layer over any background: 7 universal materials plus 4 themed boards per world.
• Five audio tracks per theme, from menu music to capture effects.

Earn it by playing

• Everything unlocks by playing, never by paying to win. Two themes are free; the rest unlock as you play.
• The rare Gold finish is earned with wins in each theme.
• Victory share card after a win, and a trophy room in your profile.
• An optional one-time Unlock All purchase ($2.59, and the 2 and 5 are a nod to the name: TEW = 2, GO = 5) for people who want everything now. It never changes gameplay.

The free browser game

• playtewgo.com/play: free, no account, works great on Android phones.
• Same rules engine as the iOS app, ported test for test.
• Play vs AI or two players on one screen. All eight themed worlds with the full set of scenes, boards, pieces, and audio.
• The same four AI difficulty levels as iOS, Expert included. The AI defends by capturing when that is the better save, and it protects its own pairs instead of gifting you captures.
• Same unlock ladder as iOS: Space and Feudal Japan are free, and the other six open as you finish games. Finishing counts whether you win or lose.
• Your own profile: name yourself, your figure becomes your avatar, and your collection is counted for you across worlds, figures, backgrounds, and soundtracks.
• Captured pairs appear above the board as the actual pieces you took, not a score.
• Your game auto-saves in the browser, and you can install it like an app.
• Win-based progression: your vs AI record is kept on your device, and 10 wins in a theme unlock its rare Gold colors, same rule as iOS.
• An optional one-time Unlock All Worlds purchase ($2.59), the same price and the same cosmetic-only promise as the iOS one. Restore anywhere with your TEWGO code.

1.0 Live

• The launch release, July 2026: the full game above on iPhone and iPad.

1.0.1 Live

• A brand new app icon.
• 3D piece finish: pick Standard or 3D in the piece picker and watch your stones sit on the board.
• Midnight and Forest dark color schemes for late-night games.

1.0.2 Live

• A new Expert AI difficulty: it reads your best answer before committing, so it spots the traps and refuses the bait.
• Show off your style online: opponents see the piece and finish you picked, your pieces in gold when you share a theme, and a sparkle by your name everywhere else.
• Report a Problem in Settings: writes us an email with your version and device already filled in.

1.0.3 Live

• AI tuning: the AI values its pairs properly and no longer hands over free captures.
• Smarter defense: Hard and Expert block a four for good instead of trading a capture you can simply rebuild, but still capture when it truly kills the line or wins the pair race.
• The difficulty ladder, rebuilt: each step up now plays like a genuinely different opponent, not just a stronger one. Easy shows you a capture once and then stops taking freebies.
• "Flanked!" - the first time your pair gets captured, the game tells you what happened right where the stones vanished. And game over now shows the pair race next to the win reason.
• Your profile keeps a record for each AI level, and the piece that moved last is gently highlighted.

1.0.4 Live

• The AI plays the capture race: it takes the pairs you leave on offer instead of walking past them, and how hungry it is for the race is now part of the difficulty. Easy still just shows you one capture; Expert races you for five pairs.
• The winner banner announces and then steps aside, so you can see the board it was covering, and a five-in-a-row win lights up the exact five stones that won it.
• The "Flanked!" callout stays a readable size however far you have zoomed in.

1.0.5 Live

• The AI defends its own pairs. It would take a pair of yours, but walk away from one of its own that you were one move from capturing. Saving a pair was scored at a quarter of what it costs to leave one hanging; it is worth half now, and Expert gives away barely more than half as many pairs a game. Already live in the browser game.
• A bigger "Flanked!" callout that stays up long enough to read, even when you were the one who captured and the AI answers straight away.

1.0.6 Live

• The "Flanked!" callout gets out of the way on its own: it still waits for your move, but never longer than six seconds.
• A capture win is now as much of a show as five in a row: glow bursts replay each spot a pair was taken, while the losing army topples. Already live in the browser game.

1.0.7 Live

• The TEWtorial: a new teaching mode with short lessons on how to actually win - never leave a loose pair, build with a gap so your pieces cannot be captured, and make two threats at once so your opponent can only stop one. More lessons arrive with future updates.
• The five in a row that won the game is now ringed and lit, instead of only glowing in the winner's own colour where it was hard to pick out.
• The losing side's pieces stay on the board. They used to topple and then vanish a second later, leaving one colour and no way to see how the game had gone.

1.0.8 Live

• The end of the game plays out before it announces itself: the board moves onto the winning five, or onto the five places a pair was taken, holds it there long enough to read, and only then pulls back for the result. Already live in the browser game.
• Winning by captures shows its work. The five captures replay in the order they happened, each one numbered, with a bar drawn through the pair that was taken. Already live in the browser game.
• Captures look like captures: light bursts between the pair and the two pieces are knocked tumbling off the board, instead of quietly fading away. Already live in the browser game.
• The "Flanked!" message no longer sits on your pieces - it moved into the clear space above the board, and there is a switch to turn it off.
• 3D pieces are actually 3D on the Flat and Chip shapes, which until now looked identical whichever finish you picked.

1.0.9 In review

• Two pieces instead of four, and more ways to make each one yours. Regular and Chip, each with its own depth, colour and glow, so choosing 3D no longer means choosing a different piece. Already live in the browser game.
• Your character IS the piece. The round chip underneath is gone, and figures cut a clean edge against each other so a crowded board stays readable. Already live in the browser game.
• Captures you can follow. A flanked pair lights up, holds, and is struck off the board leaving a mark that fades, and the game waits for it instead of playing the answer on top of it.
• The computer no longer turns up wearing almost the same piece as you.
• Tall pieces sit properly inside their squares on the Boxes board, board dots stay readable on busy backgrounds, and the Unlock All button stops offering itself once you have earned every theme.

Next up In development

• New ways to earn and show off as you play.
• Review your game: after any game ends, step back through it move by move and find the moment it turned. Already live in the browser game.
• Browser game: online play.