Sokoban History

presented by GAMES 4 BRAINS

This is the history of one of the most popular logic games ever.
Sokoban was introduced for the first time in 1982 by THINKING RABBIT, a computer games company in the town of Takarazuka, Japan. The game was invented by by Hiroyuki Imabayashi. First versions in Europe were published by SPECTRUM HOLOBYTE (1984 Apple II E).

Many of you will remember graphics like these:

Sokoban-Spectrum Holobyte Sokoban-Original

"Sokoban" (in Japanese terms) means a "warehouse man". Because of the simplicity and sophisticated elegance of the rules and the challenging complexity of the "original" problems, Sokoban quickly became an alltime classic.
The rules of sokoban are very simple:
- Push one stone at a time to goal squares
- Push and Move actions should be minimized.
Many official versions (Boxxle, Sokoban Perfect, Sokoban Revenge) and inofficial remakes of the game appeared over the years for different computers and platforms, among which are C64, Amiga, Spectrum, PC, Macintosh, CE and Palm versions. Now you can easily find a lot of clones that are using levels and ideas of the original sokoban game. Unfortunately only a few versions offer new ideas and unique levels. Google's search request for "sokoban" shows more than 60,000 web page matches. Do you need more clues for the unbroken popularity of this classic game?

Read more about Sokoban, Soukoban or Soko-Ban history and original versions here:
Soukoban review
Soko-Ban release information
Sokoban-issues in Japan
Sokoblue (online!) + SOKOFUN


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