Dominoes

Dominoes is the double-six game, dealt on the green baize of a little round bistro table with the afternoon sun coming through the window. Lay a tile whose pips match one of the two open ends of the chain. Doubles go down crosswise. When the snake reaches the edge of the table it turns and comes back the other way, and the view slides and scales so the whole chain stays in front of you however long it grows.

Pick one, two or three of the regulars, and how sharp you want them. Bram the old sea captain, Nella the student and Ida with her knitting bag all take a seat, and they do not keep quiet about it. Easy plays whatever fits. Steady sheds its heaviest tiles and gets its doubles down while it still can. Sharp counts what has already been laid, remembers every value you knocked on and does its best to leave you an end you cannot answer. Two of you at one device can pass it back and forth instead.

Two versions of the game are on the title screen. In Draw you keep pulling from the boneyard until something fits; in Block there is no boneyard to dig in, so you knock and your turn passes on. Play out your last tile and the round is yours, along with every pip still sitting in the other hands; if nobody can go, the lightest hand takes it. Switch on All Fives and the two open ends pay out whenever they add up to a multiple of five, which changes what a good tile is completely. A round-by-round scoreboard keeps the totals, the match runs to fifty, a hundred or a hundred and fifty, and your best score is kept in your browser. Tap a tile and tap an end, drag it across the felt, or play straight from the number keys.