Sokoban is a warehouse-keeper puzzle with a simple setup and a brutal consequence for careless moves: you guide a character through a room, pushing crates one at a time until every crate sits on its marked target square. The rules fit in a sentence, but the puzzle underneath them can take real planning to untangle. You can play a full set of levels right now at Sokoban, where clicking the directional arrow next to your character moves you and pushes any crate in that direction, and the game tracks your move and push counts, offers instant undo for your last action, and lets you jump between levels or shuffle to a random one.
This guide covers the reasoning that solves rooms: why pushing-only makes the genre hard, deadlocks and the three shapes that create one, spotting a deadlock before you create it, planning backward from the targets, why crate order matters, using open floor as a turning area, and undoing early rather than pushing on and hoping, with a short worked walkthrough at the end.
The Rules: Push, Never Pull
You control a single character who moves up, down, left, or right into any open floor tile. Walking into a crate pushes it one tile further in that direction, provided the tile behind it is empty โ you cannot push two crates at once, or push one into a wall or another crate. The level is solved once every crate sits on a target square; it doesn't matter which crate ends up on which target. That's the entire rule set. Everything difficult about Sokoban comes from what those rules do not let you do.
Why This One Rule Makes Sokoban Hard
You can never pull a crate back toward yourself. In most puzzle genres a bad move can be undone by reversing it, but a push in Sokoban is one-way: walking to a crate's other side and pushing it back only moves it further from its start, not back to it. That asymmetry drives the genre's entire difficulty. A crate can end up in a position from which no sequence of legal pushes can ever reach a target โ not because the puzzle is unsolvable overall, but because that crate's situation became permanently broken. Recognizing when that's about to happen is the whole game.
Deadlocks: The Concept That Decides Every Level
A deadlock is a crate position that can never be pushed onto a target again. Three shapes account for almost every deadlock you'll run into.
Corner deadlock
A crate pushed into a corner โ a tile with a wall on two adjacent sides โ can only be pushed in the two directions leading further into the room, and both are already blocked. Unless that exact tile is a target, the crate is stuck there permanently, and the level is unsolvable from that point on.
Wall deadlock
A crate pushed flat against a wall can only be pushed along the line that wall runs, never toward or away from it. If no target exists anywhere along that wall's line, the crate can never reach one, because every legal push keeps it running parallel to a wall it can't cross.
2x2 cluster deadlock
If two crates end up adjacent and a wall (or two more crates) completes a 2x2 block, none of them can be pushed in any direction without immediately colliding with another crate in the block. A 2x2 cluster is dead the instant it forms, even in open space with no wall nearby.
Spotting a Deadlock Before You Create One
Before committing to a push, trace where that crate will land and ask: is that tile a corner or flush against a wall with no target on that line, and does the push bring it next to another crate in a way that could form a 2x2 block? If either answer is yes and the destination isn't a target, don't make that push โ move a different crate first, or approach from a different angle so it travels a different route. Build the habit of looking one push ahead at the landing tile, not just checking that the immediate push is legal.
Plan Backward From the Targets
Instead of only asking where you can push a crate, look at an empty target and ask what the last push into it would have to look like โ which direction the crate needs to be traveling, and where you'd need to stand to make that final push. Working backward tells you the specific approach a crate needs, making it easier to see whether your plan is steering it toward a workable final push or just toward a wall.
Order Matters: The First Box You Place Can Block the Rest
Placing an early crate onto a target feels like progress, but a crate on a target is still a solid obstacle to every crate and path that comes after it. If another crate needs to travel through the space that first crate now occupies, you've locked yourself out of the solution without ever making an illegal move. Before finishing a crate, check whether any other crate still needs to pass through or past that square โ if so, solve that one first, or route around a different way.
Use Open Floor as a Turning Area
Pushing a crate around a corner requires walking to its opposite side first, which means you need somewhere to stand. A crate hugging a wall with no open tile on its far side can't be turned at all. Before pushing a crate toward a tight space, check there's room on the side you'll need to approach from next โ treat open floor as a resource you can use up, not just empty background.
Undo Early, Not After You're Stuck
The moment a push looks even slightly wrong โ a crate landing closer to a wall than intended, or a corner you didn't account for โ undo it immediately rather than pushing through and fixing it later. Sokoban rarely gives you a second chance several moves after the fact, because by then other crates may have moved too and the room no longer matches the position you were reasoning about. Treat undo as a planning tool you use constantly, not an emergency button.
Worked Example: Clearing a Small Room
Picture a small room with two crates and two targets. Crate A sits two tiles from a target to its right, with open floor on every side. Crate B sits one tile from a wall, its target further along that same wall's line. Push B first: approach from its left and push once to the right, landing it on target along the open line the wall doesn't block. Now turn to A: walk to its left side and push right twice. If you'd pushed A first and happened to path through the tile B's approach needed, you'd have had to walk around โ harmless here, but in a tighter room that same detour is exactly the kind of ordering mistake that creates a deadlock elsewhere. The lesson scales: solve the crate with the least flexible approach before the ones with room to spare.
Common Mistakes
- Pushing toward a corner without checking if it's a target. A corner deadlock ends the level instantly unless that tile is itself a target.
- Pushing a crate flush against a wall with no target on it. Confirm a target exists on that exact line before committing.
- Letting two crates end up adjacent near a wall. Check for a forming 2x2 cluster before a push that brings crates together.
- Finishing an easy crate first without checking behind it. A completed crate is still a solid obstacle to every other crate's path.
- Continuing after a push looks wrong instead of undoing immediately. The longer you wait, the harder it is to identify what caused the problem.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you ever pull a crate back toward you in Sokoban?
No. Every push moves a crate one tile further away from you; there is no pull action, and that's what makes planning ahead essential.
What exactly is a deadlock?
A crate position that can never reach a target through any legal sequence of pushes โ most commonly a corner, a wall with no target on it, or a 2x2 cluster of crates.
Does it matter which crate goes on which target?
No. A level is solved once every crate sits on some target square, regardless of which crate is on which target.
What should I do the instant I think I've made a bad push?
Undo it right away rather than continuing โ the game keeps an undo for your last action specifically so you can correct course before the room changes further.
Why do I keep getting stuck on the same type of level?
Usually you're solving crates in the order they're easiest to move rather than the order their approach paths demand. Plan backward from each target and solve the least flexible crate first.
Is there a time limit or scoring pressure?
No โ it's untimed, and the room tracks your move and push counts purely as a record, not a countdown.
Related Guides
- How to Play Nonogram โ a different kind of logic puzzle built on numbers instead of spatial planning.
- How to Play Mahjong Solitaire โ a calmer tile-matching puzzle without the one-wrong-move pressure of Sokoban.
- A Beginner's Guide to Puzzle Games โ a wider starting point across the whole puzzle category.
- Best Puzzle Games โ more logic and strategy titles if Sokoban's style clicks with you.
- How to Play Minesweeper โ another puzzle where reading the position ahead of your next move matters as much as the move itself.