Four-in-a-row by splitting stacks of knights on an unbounded square grid.

Inventor: Stephen Tavener

See Knight Line rulebook (PDF).

Form four of your knights in a straight orthogonal or diagonal line.

In a two-player game, if both players run out of moves without making 4-in-a-row, the second player wins. In a three-player game, all players would win.

Default: each player has a stack of 20 knights in a fixed opening layout. Variants add a central blocker or wildcard and let players place the stacks.

On your turn split one of your stacks: move some of the knights a knight’s leap (2×1) onto an empty cell.

If you run out of moves, you will be autopassed.

A central neutral piece can either block all players or be counted by any player towards a 4-in-a-row. In these variants initial stacks are placed by the players.

Players get larger starting stacks. This variant may be combined with one of the other variants.

• Current engine version: 20260721 (2026-07-21). On Abstract Play since 2026-08-03.

• First click splits a stack roughly in half; later clicks adjust one knight at a time.
• The coordinate system is explained in the implementation notes.

• http://www.nestorgames.com/rulebooks/KNIGHTLINE_EN.pdf
• https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/146989/knight-line