In the "Piece Drop" phase of the game, players take turns dropping their eight pawns onto the board at the intersections of the lines. The only restriction on these drops is that they can only be made to unoccupied intersections. No captures take place at this time.

In the "Arrow Drop" phase of the game, players take turns dropping the neutral arrows onto the lines of the board. Arrows can only be dropped to point along the lines, not perpendicular to them. No captures take place during this phase.

Once all arrows have been dropped, main play begins. Players alternate turns. On a turn, the active player takes one of his or her pawns and moves it to any adjacent location pointed to by one of the arrows on that pawn's original space. Pawns cannot directly move against the arrows. If the target space is already occupied, the two pawns swap positions. It is legal to swap with one of your own pawns.
After the pawn has moved, then all arrows surrounding that pawn's destination point (not the start point, and not any pawn that was moved indirectly with a swap) are flipped to point in the opposite direction. If, as a direct result of any of these flips, a piece (of either player: you can capture yourself) finds itself with all its arrows pointing inwards so it could not be directly moved off the space is said to be "trapped" and is removed from the board (captured). A piece that begins the game with all its arrows pointing towards it is not captured durring the Arrow Drop phase or at the beginning of the game; it is safe, although unable to move, until one of the arrows next to it is flipped from another piece move or it itself is moved by a swap. Captures only occur as a direct result of a flipped arrow.

In the basic variant, the last player with pieces left on the board wins. If a player cannot move due to all arrows pointing inwards (from start positions), that player loses.