Nine Men's Morris Unblocked

Nine Men’s Morris is one of the oldest board games still played today, with boards scratched into ancient stone across Europe. The idea is easy to grasp. Make a straight row of three pieces, called a mill, and you get to pull one of your opponent’s pieces off the board. The depth comes from how the game changes in three acts, from placing to sliding to flying. This unblocked Nine Men’s Morris is Christopher Müller’s version from PaperGames, playable against a three-level computer or a friend sharing the screen.

Three Acts of One Game

Act one: placing

The board has 24 points on three nested squares linked at the midpoints of their sides. Black begins. Turns alternate, each player adding a single piece to a free point, until all eighteen are in play. The status line tells you how many each side still has to place.

Act two: sliding

Once everything is placed, each turn you move one piece along a line to an adjacent empty point. Lines never run diagonally, so each corner point touches only the two points beside it on its own square.

Act three: flying

A player left with exactly three pieces gains the right to hop any of them to any vacant point. The other side still has to slide until they are cut down to three as well.

Throughout all three acts, any placement or move that completes a mill earns a removal. Victory comes when your rival is down to two pieces, too few to ever build a mill, or has no legal move left.

Nine Men's Morris controls

To do this	Keyboard	Mouse	Touch
Set a piece on the board	Tab to the board, arrow keys to pick a point, Enter to place	Click an empty point	Tap an empty point
Shift a piece to a new point	Enter on your piece, then Enter on the target point	Click your piece, then an empty point it can reach	Tap your piece, then the target point
Take an enemy piece after closing a mill	—	Click one of the highlighted enemy pieces	Tap one of the highlighted enemy pieces
Open the list of moves played	—	Click "Moves"	Tap "Moves"
Pick a color and opponent, take back or give up	—	Pick black or white and a level, then click "New game"; use "Undo" and "Resign" during play	Pick black or white and a level, then tap "New game"; use "Undo" and "Resign" during play

Mistakes Beginners Make

Racing for an early mill. It feels great to take a piece during placement, but it often uses up your best points. Blocking your rival and keeping your own pieces mobile matters more in act one.

Hugging the corners. Corner points have only two neighbors. Midpoints of the sides, especially on the middle square, connect to three or four, which keeps your pieces flexible once sliding begins.

Ignoring double threats. When one point would complete two mills at once, your opponent can only stop one of them. Set these up on purpose.

Not building a swing mill. Set up a piece that can shuttle between two mills, opening one as it closes the other. Every swing removes another enemy piece.

Forgetting about the flyer. When the other side starts flying, any pair of their pieces sharing a line becomes a threat that can be finished from across the board. Block those lines before anything else.

Good Company on FreezeNova

The Moves list lets you replay how a game went, Undo is there for study, and the position is saved in the browser between visits. If you like old games with simple pieces, try the Royal Game of Ur, and for a lopsided hunt on a cross-shaped board, look at Fox and Geese.