A modern strategy game · An original Roman legend

Build a line. Break theirs.

Place five stones in a row — or capture five enemy pairs before they can. Every move builds a threat. Every pair can become a trap.

Join the public beta See how it plays ↓

● Public beta now open for iPhone, iPad, and Mac

Lapilli on the Mac: the carved board beside the score cards and controls The same game on iPhone
One purchaseNo adsNo subscriptionsNo tracking
19 × 19A board with room to scheme
4 opponentsA guild, measured rung by rung
4 rule setsClassic, Keryo, and tournament
Your paceSolo, local, or by mail

The game in thirty seconds

Simple rules. Unstable positions.

Lapilli begins like a familiar five-in-a-row game. Captures change everything: the line you are building can disappear in a single move.

01

Make five

Place five stones in an unbroken line — horizontal, vertical, or diagonal.

02

Take five pairs

Flank two enemy stones to remove them. Capture five pairs and the game is yours.

03

Hold the initiative

Create threats that demand answers. Defend the line and the capture at the same time.

Learn the basics in minutes. Spend years seeing what you missed.

Read the full rules and manual →

Play it your way

No lobby. No grind. Just the next move.

Play beside a friend, face the computer, or send a move through Game Center and return when the board calls you back.

I

Across the table

Two players, one board, and nothing between you but the position.

II

Against the guild

Four computer opponents, each one measurably stronger than the last.

III

By mail

Turn-based matches through Game Center — take your next move when you are ready.

An honest ladder

Four opponents. Four different conversations.

Not four labels on the same machine. Each rung is measured against the one below it and tuned to teach a different lesson.

INovice Sees the immediate danger, forgives the human one.
IIApprentice Looks past the move and begins collecting careless pairs.
IIIJourneyman Sees several replies and makes a blunder feel expensive.
IVArtisan Takes its time, reads deeply, and rarely returns the initiative.
Meet the guild and see how it was measured →

A study of your own

The game ends. The learning begins.

Lapilli does more than hand you a hint. It keeps the whole path from a played game to a better next one.

The walk-back: a reviewed position with the engine's one-line reading
Walk any finished game move by move and find where the position turned.
The Practice Board with a book problem loaded and the answer explained
Open the book's problems on a real board, with hints that explain why.
The Mirror: a chart of repeated mistakes fading over time
The Mirror charts the mistakes you repeat — and whether they are fading.

A book that belongs beside the board

History, vocabulary, strategy, annotated positions, and problems — a 160-page companion written for the same game you are holding, included inside the app.

On every screen you own

See it played.

A carved board, hand-made glass, and synthesized lyre and birdsong — the board as it appears on your device.

A midgame of Lapilli on iPad
A midgame — matches waiting at the board's edge
The Lapilli tutorial on iPad
A tutorial walks through every rule
Lapilli settings on iPad
Boards, stones, and settings by topic
A five-in-a-row victory in Lapilli on iPad
Five in a row — the mountain has spoken

An original Roman legend

Pompeii, 79 AD. The little stones that waited beneath a volcano.

Imagine a back room in Pompeii: green and amber drops of glass, a nineteen-line board, and a game of alignment and capture played while Vesuvius murmured above the city.

That is the legend of Lapilli — fiction, offered as fiction, and a frame for a real tradition of five-in-a-row and custodial-capture games.

Read the full illustrated story →

The board is nearly ready

Your next move can wait for you.

Lapilli Stones is in public beta for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Take a seat at the board today.

Join the public beta

Opens on Apple TestFlight.