Play Larkspur Lookout Dots and Boxes

How to play Larkspur Lookout Dots and Boxes

The pencil-and-paper classic on a notepad in a mountain fire lookout. Draw lines, close boxes and fight for the long chains against Pebble the pika at three levels, or play a friend.

1. Press Play. The notepad shows a square grid of dots: 4 by 4 boxes unless you choose another board, which is 25 dots and 40 lines to draw. You draw the first line unless you choose otherwise in Settings.
2. On your turn, draw one line, across or down, between two dots side by side that are not yet joined. Tap near the line, or press and slide to aim, then let go.
3. If your line completes the fourth side of a box, the box is yours: it fills with your mug, and you must draw another line. One line can close two boxes at once, and it still earns just one more line. Your turn ends when you draw a line that closes no box.
4. Pebble does the same on her turn, drawing in indigo pencil while yours is red. Every box she closes fills with her face.
5. When every line is drawn, whoever has more boxes wins. On the 4 by 4 and 6 by 6 boards the boxes can split evenly, for a tie.

Controls

• Touch or mouse: tap near the line you want. Press and hold to see it previewed in pencil, slide to another line if you like, and let go to draw it. A tap between lines picks the nearest line still open. Undo, Hint and Menu sit on the shelf below the notepad, or beside it on a wide screen.
• Keyboard: the arrow keys move a visible focus from line to line, and Enter or Space draws the line in focus. U undoes, H shows a hint, and Escape clears the hint.
• Restart in the toolbar starts a new game. Menu starts a new game, opens Settings (your opponent, the board, who draws first, Pebble’s speed and the third-side warnings), and shows your statistics and the rules. The toolbar also has pause, help, optional sound and fullscreen.