Classic Dots: Paper Strategy

Classic Dots is the dots game you played on squared paper at school: a pen and paper strategy game for two players. Take turns putting dots on the crossings, and a closed loop of your dots takes every dot of the other colour inside it. Simple to learn, deep to play, free to play offline and online.

PLAY ANYWHERE
• Six computer opponents, all free, from a Learner who forgets to close loops to a Grandmaster that reads the whole sheet. No account, no internet needed.
• 2 player pass and play on one device, or a wifi table for up to four: local multiplayer, no internet needed.
• Online multiplayer: the app finds someone near your rating, live with a clock, or in slow games with days for every move and a notice when it is yours.
• Invite friends, ask for a rematch, climb the standings.
• Sketch first, then ink: no mis-taps, even on a 64 × 64 sheet.
• A move clock, or a game clock with an increment.

ON PAPER, PROPERLY
• Copybook and night-desk paper, text up to twice the size, a screen reader that follows the game, keyboard play at a desk.
• Every game kept as a replay; share a result as a picture.
• 220 puzzles and a daily puzzle with a streak.
• Five short lessons that teach the game from the first dot.

THE GAME ITSELF
A board game on paper, a logic game of territory and pure strategy, and a cousin of Go: you win by surrounding, not by lining up. No dice, no cards, no luck, only reading the sheet, as in a notebook at the back of the class. (Not to be confused with Dots and Boxes: there are no lines to draw and no squares to fill.)

CLASSIC DOTS PLUS
An optional subscription: no ads, the whole puzzle book every day, hints whenever you like, where the game turned in every replay, and slow games without limit. Monthly or yearly, with a free week on the yearly plan. Everything else in the app stays free.

Known as Chimie, Точки, Крапки and Kropki. Nothing to sign up for to play offline; sign in with Google or Apple to play strangers and keep a rating.

Recent changes:
• New: a notice when someone is looking for an opponent and nobody has the app open. Your choice, with a switch in Settings; one at most until you next open the app, never at night.
• The computer plays a sounder game and wastes no dots.
• Doodles in 20 colours, and 12 new doodles.
• In an online game, add the other player as a friend from the menu.
• Standings list you from your first rated game.