Take turns drawing one line between two neighbouring dots. Draw the fourth side of a box and it is yours, and you move again. When every line is drawn, whoever owns more boxes wins. Play the computer or a friend on the same phone.
👆 Tap the gap between two dots to draw a line ← All gamesAdded 7 Nov 2026
Play Dots and Boxes free in your browser, the classic pencil-and-paper game of lines and squares, against the computer or with a friend on one phone.
The board is a square grid of dots. Two players take turns, and on your turn you draw one line: a short horizontal or vertical line that joins two dots next to each other. You cannot draw a diagonal and you cannot draw over a line that is already there.
When your line closes the fourth side of a box, that box is yours. It fills with your colour and your letter, and you must draw another line at once. If that line closes another box, you go again, so a single turn can sweep up a whole row of boxes. A line that closes nothing ends your turn. A line can close two boxes at once if it is the last side of both.
The game ends when every line has been drawn. The player who owns more boxes wins. You are blue and always draw the first line; the computer is pink. To play a friend instead, pick 2 Players on the start screen and pass the phone after each turn.
Tap the gap between two dots to draw a line there. Undo takes back your last line (and the computer's answer), and Hint lights up a good line in gold.
Small is a 3 by 3 board of 9 boxes against an easy computer that grabs free boxes but makes careless lines: a quick game to learn the rules, and on your turn every line that would hand a box away is tinted red. Medium has 25 boxes and a computer that never gives a box away unless it has to. Large has 49 boxes and the strongest computer, which counts chains and plays the double-cross. Each mode keeps its own wins, streak and medals: bronze for any win, silver and gold for winning by a big margin. In 2 Players mode no stats are saved.
Yes. On the start screen switch from vs Computer to 2 Players, then pass the phone after each turn. Blue always starts, the coloured bar at the top shows whose turn it is, and a player who closes a box keeps the phone for another line.
The box becomes yours, it fills with your colour and you must draw another line straight away. If that line closes a box too, you go again, so one turn can take a whole chain of boxes.
It is the expert trick of refusing the last two boxes of a chain. Instead of taking them you draw the line at the far end, which hands the pair to your opponent. They take the two boxes, but then they must draw a line somewhere else and open the next long chain for you. The computer on the Large board uses it.
It gets stronger with the board. On Small it takes any free box but often draws careless lines. On Medium it never gives a box away unless it has to. On Large it also counts the chains at the end of the game and plays the double-cross to keep control.
The winner is whoever owns more boxes when every line is drawn. The points counter on top adds 10 points per box you close, 5 more for every extra box in the same turn, 1 point for each line that gives nothing away and 100 for a win against the computer. Medals depend on how many boxes you win by.
On this site's three boards the box count is odd (9, 25 or 49 boxes), so somebody always wins and a draw cannot happen. Draws only happen on boards with an even number of boxes, such as 4 by 4.
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