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Pocoman
Sleepless Inc. |
| This is apparently a port of an Amiga game. Features different box graphics in every level and occasional quips from the title character ("I am Pocoman", says Pocoman, reminding you that he is, indeed, Pocoman), but apart from these quirks, it's all the same old with few features. |
Systems:
Windows |
Licence:
Shareware |
Type:
Traditional |
Levels: Original Sokoban
Editor: No
Solutions: Scores Only? |
On Steam
Legacy Download (Shareware, 1996) |
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Push DX
Mike Archer |
An unusually punishing Sokoban variant where every level is on a timer, your penguin character is limited to three lives & passwords, and there is no undo. Boxes and goals come in multiple colours, like in the "modern" puzzles of Sokoban Online, and there are some other basic elements like no-push tiles and ice. Includes new levels and ports from some rarer sources.
NOTE: The game ran really slowly when I tested it on a modern computer, to the point of unplayability. A virtual machine seems to help, but even then, it's still noticeably slow. |
Systems:
Windows |
Licence:
Freeware |
Type:
Variant |
Levels: New Levels, Other Sources
Editor: Yes
Solutions: No |
Caiman |
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Pushy PC
Nigel Brown |
| A stressful Sokoban game with slippery controls and weird sounds. Every level has a time limit that counts down very fast to make you panic, though they are thankfully not that hard (or wouldn't be, if not for the sliding around). New are the always popular ball elements, which slide until they hit something and must likewise be placed on goals. The game appears to be in beta; I'm not aware if a final version exists. |
Systems:
Windows |
Licence:
Freeware |
Type:
New Elements |
Levels: New Levels
Editor: No
Solutions: No |
Caiman |
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Ro's Quest
Ulrich Hofmann, Peter Gunn? |
An obscure (and somewhat weird) German clone that adds new elements like breaking floors, ice, heat plates (boxes cool them off), tiles to repair holes, and (most bizarrely) the green cheese from Emerald Mine, which grows randomly and makes levels unsolvable on a whim... and then proceeds to do nothing with outside of an editor example, opting to port the original Sokoban levels instead.
Oddly, there are two separate versions of this game - one Shareware, one seemingly free - credited to completely different people! The Shareware seems more polished and has an English translation, but appears to predate the free one, which links to the homepage of a show magician. If anyone has more info about these versions, please let me know! |
Systems:
Windows |
Licence:
Shareware, Free? |
Type:
New Elements |
Levels: Original Sokoban
Editor: Yes
Solutions: No |
Shareware Download
Alternative Version |
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Rocks 'n' Diamonds
Artsoft |
| As the name implies, this open-source game is actually an adaptation of Boulder Dash, Emerald Mine and similar games, but if you look beneath the surface, you'll find everything you need to build and play traditional Sokoban puzzles (and more). All the original levels are included in a dedicated levelpack and it's easy to make more - or mix & match them with objects from entirely different games for some cursed hybrid puzzles. Who hasn't always wanted bombs, gravity on/off funnels and a Conway's Game of Life simulation in their Sokoban levels? Everyone, that's who. |
Systems:
Windows |
Licence:
Freeware |
Type:
Other Puzzle Game |
Levels: Original Sokoban
Editor: Yes
Solutions: Yes |
Official Website |
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Soko DX
Frank Hollwitz |
A simple Sokoban clone made in Delphi. Fancy space theme with an animated starfield background. Shows scores and pushes, but doesn't save them. Unusually, the editor can import/export .xsb files for XSokoban, but no other format.
(NOTE: The game sometimes crashes on launch and may need to be started in compatibility mode.) |
Systems:
Windows |
Licence:
Freeware |
Type:
Traditional |
Levels: Original Sokoban
Editor: Yes
Solutions: No |
SourceForge |
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Soko
Mark McIntyre |
A small Sokoban with a nondescript name. Boxes can come in multiple colours, but the difference is purely visual. Comes with a few sets organised by difficulty, including 10 "Easy" levels made by the developer, plus ports of original Sokoban and some other popular sets. Progress is tracked on a "Scorecard" that saves best results for each puzzle.
Weirdly, while the levels are external, there seems to be no way to add or import more, as there is no editor and the format (generically called .sok) isn't readable. Shame. |
Systems:
Windows |
Licence:
Freeware |
Type:
Traditional |
Levels: New Levels, Original Sokoban, Other Sources
Editor: No
Solutions: Scores Only |
Download |
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Soko-Soko-Ban-Ban
Kenny Wright |
On the surface, this short game has the same goal as Sokoban, with the difference that boxes and goals disappear once combined. The big twist, however, is that each puzzle has a mirror universe version next to it, with another pusher to control at the same time. While these levels are mirrored or rotated, the pusher movements are not, so you will often have to desync their movements to not accidentally render one puzzle unsolvable while solving the other.
There are only 10 levels and no features (or even files) to speak of, so the game seems more like a proof of concept, although this concept is very similar to the DOS puzzle game Clone. |
Systems:
Windows |
Licence:
Freeware |
Type:
Variant |
Levels: New Levels
Editor: No
Solutions: No |
Caiman |
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SokoBall of Osaka
Jim Radcliffe |
A moderately well-known DOS Sokoban where you play as a ball. It's actually a variant, because crates disappear into holes instead of remaining on the goals, and there are weird new elements, like floor switches that pull half a row or column of tiles in the player's direction when stepping off. Unfortunately, most of the levels are still just conversions of the original Sokoban ones, given fancy "Japan-inspired" names (if your only experience with Japan is from visiting a theme park).
There are two main versions, with very different graphics. It was later converted into Sokoban 1994, a straightforward Sokoban clone that drops the new additions. |
Systems:
Windows |
Licence:
Shareware |
Type:
Variant |
Levels: New Levels, Original Sokoban
Editor: Yes
Solutions: No |
DOSGames.com
Legacy Download (Shareware, old version) |
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SokoMind
Gerald Holler |
| Originally known as Sokoban 97. A very user-friendly Sokoban that can play traditional levels or a variant format called "SokoMind Plus", which assigns number labels to each box and goal and will only accept boxes on the goal field with the same number. Has an easy-to-use editor that can create puzzles of both types. |
Systems:
Windows |
Licence:
Freeware |
Type:
Traditional, Variant |
Levels: New Levels
Editor: Yes
Solutions: Yes |
Download (3.4)
Legacy Download (Sokoban 97) |
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SokoRaupe
Steffen Lange |
| Sadly has nothing to do with caterpillars, but rather the more or less conventional Planierraupe, a bulldozer. The game is definitely less conventional, featuring construction-related elements that all belong in different places - dirt mounds into water (to fill it up), bricks into trucks (your main goal), and rubbish into the Windows 95 Recycling Bin. Oddly, it still manages to copy layouts from the Thinking Rabbit game. Multiple versions are documented on the dev's website, but the only download at this time is for 3.0. |
Systems:
Windows |
Licence:
Shareware |
Type:
Variant |
Levels: New Levels, Original Sokoban
Editor: Yes
Solutions: Yes |
Official Website
Legacy Download (Shareware V.IIa) |
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Sokoban 1994
Jim Radcliffe |
| A plain Sokoban clone for DOS, converted from SokoBall of Osaka and with mostly the same graphics. It claims to feature user-contributed levels and declares them "public domain", which is dubious as they are clearly the same as Thinking Rabbit's. Questionable legality aside, the only notable feature here is the addition of a timer, which counts down from 500 seconds on every level, forcing you to hurry. |
Systems:
DOS |
Licence:
Shareware |
Type:
Traditional |
Levels: Original Sokoban
Editor: Yes
Solutions: No |
Dos Games Archive |
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Sokoban 22
Games 4 Brains |
| A web/mobile Sokoban from the Sokofun devs that's intended to also work on mobile. Don't know much about this one. |
Systems:
Web, Mobile |
Licence:
Free |
Type:
Traditional |
Levels: New Levels
Editor: No
Solutions: Yes |
Official Website |
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Sokoban 2K
Brian R. Kent |
| A fancy-looking Sokoban clone made with Multimedia Fusion. While that does earn it some points from me specifically, the game loads slowly and has unresponsive controls, along with some very distracting animations. Levels are from Boxxle, one of Yoshio Murase's sets, and a set of new ones, which are not particularly hard. |
Systems:
Windows |
Licence:
Freeware |
Type:
Traditional |
Levels: New Levels, Other Sources
Editor: Yes
Solutions: No |
Kliktopia |
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Sokoban Online
Uphill Studio |
A popular online Sokoban implementation. Can be played classic or in the new Sokoban Online format, which has multiple goal/box colours and new elements, but some of them are kind of weird and niche. Has a community and user contributions, though the focus on solving levels the optimal way can take some of the fun out of just solving the puzzles.
The game is free, but some non-essential features like player skins are locked behind small one-time payments. I wrote a review in 2017 that I think still applies. |
Systems:
Web |
Licence:
Free |
Type:
Traditional, Variant |
Levels: New Levels, Original Sokoban, Other Sources
Editor: Yes
Solutions: Scores Only |
Official Website |
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Sokoban for Windows
Björn Källmark |
| A generically-named clone that was widespread in the 90s and continues to be somewhat well-known. You control a radical egg dude, pushing orbs on the beach to MIDIs like California Dreamin' - except when you don't, depending on which one of the game's many release versions you got. Iconic, but nothing special nowadays for a non-free version. |
Systems:
Windows |
Licence:
Shareware |
Type:
Traditional |
Levels: Original Sokoban
Editor: Import Only
Solutions: Yes |
Official Website
Legacy Download (Shareware V.1.5) |
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Sokoban
Allan B. Liss |
| Probably one of the earliest Windows clones of Sokoban (from 1992!) and about as plain and generic as they come. Many may remember this little diamond... demon... thing and its relentless motivation to push yellow parcels around. Cute, tiny graphics, but no features to speak of apart from a single undo. Shows scores, but doesn't save them. |
Systems:
Windows |
Licence:
Freeware |
Type:
Traditional |
Levels: Original Sokoban
Editor: No
Solutions: No |
Download (2.2.5) |
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Sokoban
Pawel Lazoffsky |
An ultra-minimalistic demoscene implementation that runs in DOS and uses pure command line text for graphics (with the same symbols as the common ASCII level format). The whole game is designed to be compact and probably breaks some record for the smallest Sokoban game at only 1 kilobyte(!), of which 3/4 are level data. Includes the first 6 levels from the original game (any more would have pushed it past its imposed size limit) with no way to add more, but it's also open-source, so people with the necessary know-how (it's written in pure ASM) can tinker with it.
(Fun fact: The PNG image on the left is larger than the game executable!) |
Systems:
DOS |
Licence:
Free |
Type:
Traditional |
Levels: Original Sokoban
Editor: Moddable
Solutions: No |
pouet.net |
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Sokoban++
Joris Wit |
| A Sokoban suite made in C++, with a plain and clear GUI. Comes with solvers, macro recording and some interesting skins on the website. Supports many level formats, including XSokoban, Sokofun and SokoBlue, but the integrated editing mode is rather clunky. |
Systems:
Windows |
Licence:
Freeware |
Type:
Traditional |
Levels: Original Sokoban
Editor: Yes
Solutions: Yes |
Official Website |
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Sokoban: Armageddon
Pavel Klavik |
Behind this oddly dramatic name hides a traditional Sokoban with isometric graphics, special effects and editor/import features. It uses the .xsb (XSokoban) format, and includes a big assortment of levels (with more on the website), some of which are new. A reskin with different levels known as "Becher-ban" can be found on the website, apparently made for a game design competition hosted by a Czech beer brand. I mean, sure, why not.
NOTE: The game runs in full-screen and may cause a white screen freeze on start-up. I was able to run it in compatibility mode for Windows XP, but it's rather laggy. |
Systems:
Windows |
Licence:
Freeware |
Type:
Traditional |
Levels: New Levels, Original Sokoban, Other Sources
Editor: Yes
Solutions: Scores Only |
Official Website |
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What's this?
This is a lightly curated list of clones and variants of the classic Sokoban, as well as some similar puzzle games.
Sokoban was invented in 1982 by Hiroyuki Imabayashi and is based on the very simple concept of pushing boxes into goal positions, with the caveat that you cannot pull them and can only push one at a time. Of course, being so simple yet intelligent, it's probably one of the most-copied games, and its pushing logic has become a stock game mechanic even in otherwise unrelated games.
As such, this list is far from complete, and it never will be. Right now, it focuses on PC games, and does not cover pure mobile games due to their fleeting and soulless nature. It also does not include games by Thinking Rabbit, as those are easy to find and the focus here is on clones.
If you know of any games you feel should be included here, feel free to contact me.
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Type:
- Traditional - Original Sokoban gameplay with walls, boxes and goals.
- New Elements - Uses the original elements, but adds new ones. Recreating traditional puzzles is possible.
- Variant - Puts a new spin on the formula (while still being distinctly "Sokoban"). Recreating traditional puzzles may not be possible.
- Other Puzzle Game - Feels too far removed from Sokoban, but may still be of interest to fans.
Levels:
- Original Sokoban - Includes levels from the original Sokoban by Thinking Rabbit.
- Other Sources - Includes levels from other sources, such as Box World, Boxxle or other widespread sets.
- New Levels - Includes fully original levels not seen in other games.
Editor:
- Yes - Game has its own editor, internal or external, to make new stages.
- Import Only - No editor, but allows importing levels from elsewhere (e.g. text files).
- Moddable - No editor or importing, but files can be changed with some finesse.
- No - No editor and no way to play different levels.
Solutions:
- Yes - Game can store and/or show solutions.
- Scores Only - Game only saves scores for each puzzle.
- No - Game does not save solutions or scores.
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