Cavale - Return to Ithaca

Cavale — Return to Ithaca is a board puzzle that lives in a browser tab. No install, no account.

The rule fits in one line: Odysseus moves like the knight in chess, always in an L, and must visit every square of an island before putting to sea again. The problem is a classic — the knight's tour — but you almost always meet it as a bare grid where you pick a board size. Cavale turns it into a voyage: seven books, 51 crossings designed one by one, and eight mechanics that pile up along the Odyssey — Charybdis' whirlpool, Scylla's heads, the song of the Sirens, the veil of the Underworld, the isle of Calypso.

The design choice fits in one sentence: being stuck does not end the game. You can always retrace your own steps and finish the crossing, at the cost of a star. The game grades the elegance of your path rather than mere success — three stars for a perfect route — and never sends you back to square one.

The game is playable in English and French, and includes a free mode that generates crossings endlessly.