Kropki (Dots) - rules of the game

Two players make moves in turn. At each move a player places their dot on one of unoccupied line intersections. The aim of the game is to capture as many of the opponent's dots as possible by encircling them completely with your own dots. The player who captures more dots than his opponent wins.

Realms

A realm is an enclosure resulting from one player's encirclement of the opponent's dots. Under the standard and „no territiry” rules realms close their borders automatically. No penalty is incurred for enclosing your own dots. In the event of encircling an opponent's realm, the player's dots which are located in that realm are liberated and the opponent's score is lowered correspondingly. For example, in the animation below Red has already captured 1 dot, hence the initial score is 0:1. However, Blue is able to encircle Red's realm and liberate his captured dot. Having performed this maneuver, Blue finishes with the score of 16:0.

animation - enclosure

The end of the game

A game ends when there is no more room for placing dots on the board. A player can terminate a game by pressing the ''end the game'' button.

Example

Click '>' in the window below to follow an opening of a sample game.

See also:
elements of tactics and strategy,
differences between various rule sets.