Room and Pillar is played on a Kōnane board, a rectangular grid of points that hold one stone each. The board starts filled with a checkerboard pattern of black and white stones.
The two players, Black and White, take turns removing a stone of their own color, one stone per turn, starting with Black. Passing is not allowed.
After the first removal, every removal must be orthogonally (horizontally or vertically) adjacent to an empty point.
A removal must never create a 2×2 area of empty points.
The goal is to be the last player to remove a stone. If you have no removal available, you lose.
After Black’s first removal, White may switch colors and take over Black, claiming that first removal as White’s own. The former Black player then plays White and moves next. The pie rule can be turned off in the menu.
Mark Steere designed Room and Pillar in August 2026. It was inspired by the ancient Hawaiian game of Kōnane and by the room and pillar mining process, in which ore is removed from a “room” and “pillars” of ore are left in place to hold up the ceiling. His other games can be found at marksteeregames.com.