Malefiz
The board game of barricades
Free · In‑App Purchases
Rewritten for iPad and Mac. The same board and the same opponent as the original, now drawn sharp at any size - and you can play with friends on the devices around you.
Malefiz — sold in English as Barricade — is a race game with one very good idea in it. Getting a pawn to the top of the board is easy enough. Getting past the eleven black barricades in the way is not, because a barricade cannot be jumped. To pass one you have to land on it exactly — and then you pick it up and put it down again wherever you like.
That is the whole game. Every barricade you take is a barricade you can drop across somebody else's road, or on the square in front of their home, shutting them in until they roll their way out. Nothing is safe and nobody is ahead for long.
HOW TO PLAY
Roll the dice and move one pawn that many squares along the printed track, up, down or sideways. Land on an opponent and they go straight back to their home base, however far they had come. Land on a barricade and you take it. First pawn to the red square at the top wins.
Tap a pawn and every square it can reach lights up, so you can see the move before you commit to it — and the pawn travels the squares it actually walked, not a straight line, so you can follow the count.
FOUR WAYS TO PLAY
• Against the computer — one, two or three opponents, free and without limits
• Round one screen — pass the iPad between two, three or four people
• Against other iPads and Macs nearby — no account, no internet, no sign-in
• Join a game somebody else has started
ON IPAD AND MAC
One purchase covers both. The board is drawn rather than photographed, so it is sharp on every display, and the layout follows the window: the players sit beside the board when there is room and underneath when there is not. Light and dark, English, French and Spanish.
WHAT IT DOES NOT DO
No ads. No sign-in. No account. No subscription. No data leaves your device. Games between devices happen over your own Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and go nowhere near a server.
ABOUT THE PURCHASE
The game is free against the computer — the real board, the real rules, the same opponent that shipped in 2010, all four seats and every setting. One optional purchase adds the other people: more than one human player on this device, and games against other iPads and Macs nearby. Bought once, no subscription, covers iPad and Mac, and shareable with your family.
Malefiz was invented by Werner Schöppner and first published by Ravensburger in 1960. This version was written by Philippe Guillaud; the board, the rules and the computer opponent are the ones from the original 2010 release, carried across move for move.
Malefiz has been rewritten from the ground up for iPad and Mac.
THE BOARD IS DRAWN, NOT PHOTOGRAPHED
Every square, pawn and barricade is drawn as you look at it, so the board is pin-sharp on any display instead of being a photograph stretched to fit. The dice is a real tumbling cube again, in the same red glass, and it lands flat on the number it rolled.
PAWNS FOLLOW THE TRACK
A moving pawn now travels the squares it actually walked — round the corners and along the lanes — so you can follow the count instead of watching it slide across the middle of the board.
NOW ON THE MAC
The same game, the same purchase, in a window that can be any shape you like.
PLAY WITH THE DEVICES AROUND YOU
The old Bluetooth link is gone — Apple removed it years ago — and nearby play is rebuilt on today's foundations. It works between iPads and Macs, over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, with no account and no internet connection. One device runs the game and the others follow it, so the boards can no longer drift apart.
AND THE SMALL THINGS
Light and dark. Any orientation. English, French and now Spanish — your language or the device's. A saved game that survives being closed. Sounds for the dice, for a piece landing and for a capture. VoiceOver throughout.
The board, the rules and the computer opponent are the ones you already know, carried across move for move — including a barricade bug from 2010 that could put a piece somewhere a piece may not go.
The developer, Philippe GUILLAUD, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Philippe GUILLAUD
- Size
- 46 MB
- Category
- Board
- Compatibility
Requires iPadOS 17.0 or later.
- iPad
Requires iPadOS 17.0 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 14.0 or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.0 or later.
- iPad
- Languages
English and 2 more
- English, French, Spanish
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- In-App Purchases
Yes
- Play With Friends $2.99
- Copyright
- © Philippe GUILLAUD 2026 - All rights reserved
