What is Hidden Flag Play?
Hidden Flag Play is a single-player, hidden-piece strategy game on a six-by-six board. You control the blue army at the bottom; a computer controls the opposing army at the top. Your objective is to capture its flag while protecting your own. Numbered pieces can move, but flags and mines cannot. Enemy identities begin concealed, so an attack can reveal a useful target or uncover a dangerous defender.
This is an independent pocket-rule prototype, not the official Stratego game or a reproduction of its full rules. The compact board, army composition and movement rules below define this version. There is no online matchmaking, second human player, chat, ranking ladder or paid upgrade. This draft is for testing the game before a public launch.
How to start Hidden Flag Play
Select the play button above to load the board in the same area. During deployment, your twelve pieces occupy the bottom two rows. Select two blue pieces to exchange their positions, or use Shuffle setup to rearrange your army. Swapping does not move a piece outside your deployment area. The computer's twelve pieces occupy the top two rows, and the middle two rows begin empty.
When you are satisfied, select Begin match. You move first. Choose a blue numbered piece, then choose a highlighted adjacent square. Selecting your chosen piece again cancels the selection. You may also select another friendly numbered piece to change your choice. The computer responds after your legal move. New game starts a fresh deployment; if a match is in progress, a confirmation asks whether to discard it.
Pieces in Hidden Flag Play
Each army contains one flag, two mines, three runners numbered 1, two sappers numbered 2, two guards numbered 3, one captain numbered 4 and one commander numbered 5. Your own identities are visible from the beginning. Enemy pieces display a question mark until they fight. The flag uses a flag symbol and mines use a star-like symbol; neither can be selected for movement after deployment.
Every numbered piece moves exactly one square up, down, left or right. Runners do not have a long-range move in this pocket version. Diagonal movement, jumping over pieces and moving onto a friendly piece are not allowed. An enemy-occupied adjacent square can be attacked. There are no lakes, blocked terrain cells or separate special movement abilities.
Combat and winning
Moving onto an enemy piece starts combat. Against another numbered piece, the higher number survives on the contested square. Equal numbers remove both pieces. A sapper, numbered 2, defeats a mine; any other numbered attacker loses to a mine. Any moving piece can capture an enemy flag. Combat reveals both identities, and a surviving combatant stays publicly revealed for the remainder of the match. A small diamond marks this public information.
Capturing the opposing flag wins immediately. You also win if your opponent has no legal move when its turn arrives. A match ends in a draw after eighty consecutive individual moves without combat, not eighty pairs of moves. Any combat resets that counter, including an attack in which the defender survives. At the end, the remaining identities are displayed. Open Battle log to review recent moves and combat results using board coordinates.
What does the computer know?
The computer's move chooser receives its own pieces, occupied squares, the movement markers and any identities revealed by combat. Unrevealed human piece types are removed from the information passed to that chooser. It uses a basic move-scoring approach rather than a trained or expert-level opponent. Its decisions may be weak, especially when it has little public information.
The game runs in your browser, so hidden information is a gameplay rule rather than protection against someone inspecting browser code. This is not a secure multiplayer implementation. Watch the movement and combat markers to keep track of what has been revealed. A piece that has already moved cannot be an immobile flag or mine.
Controls and saving
On a touchscreen, tap a piece and then its destination. With a mouse, click the same two squares. The board uses native buttons, so keyboard users can navigate with Tab and activate a focused button with Enter or Space. There is no drag requirement or separate arrow-key movement mode. The fullscreen control is next to the player; availability depends on the browser and device.
Save requests an anonymous position save for the current browser. It is manual: later moves are not automatically saved, and refreshing does not save your match. Restore attempts to load that saved position and asks before replacing a running match. A confirmation message reports whether the request succeeded. If the save service is unavailable, the board remains playable, but unsaved progress can be lost. Do not rely on cross-device recovery or expect a cleared browser identity to retain access to its previous save.
Hidden Flag Play questions
Is this an official Stratego game?
No. Hidden Flag Play is an independent, simplified prototype with its own name and interface. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the official game's owners. Use the pocket rules on this page rather than assuming that familiar rules from another game apply.
Can I play against a friend?
Not in this version. The opponent is a local computer player. There are no rooms, invitations or live multiplayer matches.
Do I need a download or account?
The prototype is designed to run in the browser without installing an app or creating a named account. Optional saving uses the engine's anonymous player service. A working JavaScript-enabled browser is required.
Why can I not move a piece?
Check whether it is your turn and whether the piece is numbered. Flags and mines are immobile. A numbered piece must have an adjacent square that is empty or occupied by an opponent. During deployment, selection exchanges two friendly pieces instead of making a combat move.
What should I report during testing?
Report the move, the visible piece identities and the result you expected. Also mention your browser and whether you restored a save. Do not include personal information. The preview's comment area demonstrates the interface; it does not submit real comments. If a save or restore request fails, keep playing in the current tab and report the message shown.
Field notes
Found a confusing rule or a broken move? Describe what happened. Do not include personal information.
The first field note could be yours.