How to play Dots and Boxes
Dots and boxes is a pencil-and-paper game for two players. The board is a grid of dots. On your turn you draw one line between two neighbouring dots. When a line completes the fourth side of a box, that box is yours and you draw again. When every box has been claimed, the player with more boxes wins.
- Drawing: click or tap between two dots to draw a line. A faint dotted guide shows where lines can go.
- Claiming: close the fourth side of a box and it fills with your colour and initial. You then take another turn.
- Two at once: one line can close two boxes together, which scores two and still gives you another turn.
- Winning: the player with the most boxes wins. On a board with an even number of boxes the game can end in a draw.
The key idea: do not give boxes away
Drawing a third side of a box hands it to your opponent, who closes it and goes again. Early in the game, draw lines that do not create a box with three sides. Sooner or later every safe line runs out and someone has to give boxes away. The skill is in making that someone your opponent, and in giving away as little as you can.
Playing Dots and Boxes on boardflix
Pick a board from 3 x 3 to 6 x 6 boxes and play the computer on Easy, Medium or Hard, or pass the device around. Boxes you can close right now are marked with a dashed outline so you never miss one. The Hard computer plays the endgame perfectly, including the tricky move of declining the last boxes of a chain to keep control. To play a friend, press Create Room: the host picks the board size, and if someone leaves, the computer takes over.