Shogi4

A 4×4 animal drop-shogi — played move by move.
GitHub Brian Liou
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Moves played
Legal moves

Shogi4

Oca Studios' public-domain 4×4 animal drop-shogi — the third rung on the small-shogi ladder (Dōbutsu 3×4 → Shogi4 4×4 → Micro 4×5).

The pieces

Five per side. Each steps one square in its marked directions (the paw prints on every tile show them, in that piece's forward sense). On reaching the opponent's last rank the four non-royals evolve (royals never do):

  • King (Crane / Pheasant) — all 8 directions; royal, never evolves. Capturing it wins.
  • Carp (P) — forward only → evolves to Koi (O).
  • Tapir (T) — forward + both forward-diagonals → Baku (B).
  • Raccoon-dog (R) — the four diagonals → Tanuki (N).
  • Fox (F) — the four orthogonals → Kitsune (G).

Koi, Baku and Tanuki all move as a silver general (forward + four diagonals); Kitsune moves as a gold general. The second player's pieces sit on a slightly darker card (to tell the sides apart) and are rotated 180°, as in traditional shogi, so each tile's move-marks point the right way for that side.

The distinctive rules

  • Friendly-jump — in any of its directions, a piece may leap a single adjacent ally to land on the empty square two beyond. (Dōbutsu has no such rule.)
  • Drops — a captured piece flips side, reverts to its base form, and may be dropped onto any empty square except the opponent's last rank.
  • Winning — capture the opposing royal. There is no check, no checkmate, and no reach-the-far-side "Try"; moving into capture is legal.

What this is

Shogi4 is not solved yet — there is no tablebase, so this viewer shows legal moves only (no win/loss verdicts). Every move comes from the project's rules engine, validated to the digit against the decompiled official app. Drag a piece or click a move to play; ◀ ▶ step the line. When the strong solution is computed, each move will also carry its result and distance-to-mate.

Shogi4 and its piece artwork © Oca Studios, released into the public domain. Engine + viewer by Brian Liou.

Import / export a game

A space-separated move list in this viewer's notation (e.g. Ka1-a3 Kd4-d2). Optionally start with FROM:<position>.