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Dots and Boxes against the AI on a 4×4 grid of dots: draw lines, complete squares and claim at least 5 of the 9 boxes. Every win extends your streak, and the AI sharpens as the streak grows.
The board is a 4×4 grid of dots with 24 empty line slots between them — 12 horizontal and 12 vertical — framing 9 boxes. Press Start and the AI draws the first line; after that you take turns. On your turn, tap any empty slot between two neighbouring dots to draw a line there.
Whoever draws the fourth side of a box claims it — it is marked P for you in blue or A for the AI in red — and must draw again straight away. One line can complete two boxes at once. A line that completes nothing passes the turn. The box count for both sides is shown above the board.
The match ends when all 24 lines are drawn, and whoever owns more boxes wins. With 9 boxes there are no draws: 5 boxes always wins.
Your score is your winning streak. After a win, tap New on the result card to play the next match with your streak intact, or Save score to enter the streak in the Hall of Fame — that button appears only after a win. A loss ends the streak, and so does the New button at the top of the screen, which always starts over from zero.
The AI moves first in every match and gets stronger as your streak grows. In your first two matches it takes any box it can but otherwise draws lines at random. In matches three to five it avoids handing you boxes, opens the smallest chain when it has to, and calculates every remaining line perfectly once 12 or fewer are left. From the sixth match on, that perfect calculation starts with 16 lines still to draw.
Goal: win as many matches in a row as you can.
The beginner trap is grabbing every box you can; the expert game is all about who is forced to open the next chain. Avoid drawing the third side of any box, because that simply hands your opponent the fourth side and the free turn that comes with it. Early on, play only "safe" lines that leave every box with two or fewer sides.
When safe moves run out, the player forced to open a chain usually loses it whole — unless they use the double-cross. Instead of taking every box in a chain you are given, decline the last two by drawing the closing line, sacrificing that pair to force your opponent to open the next, bigger chain. Counting the long chains and keeping their number on your side is the real strategy; whoever controls chain parity controls the match, so think about the whole board, not the box in front of you.
This particular board has a known answer: with perfect play from both sides, the second player wins 6–3, and here you are always second, so every match is winnable in principle. The working rule on a 16-dot board is that the second player wants an odd number of long chains (runs of three or more boxes). The safe lines usually run out after 11 to 14 lines; look at the board at that point. One long chain, or three, favours you; two long chains, or a single closed loop with no chain, favours the AI. While safe lines remain, prefer the ones that merge short runs into one long chain or chop a would-be second chain into pieces of one or two boxes.
Play each level differently. In the first two matches the AI never checks whether a line hands you a box, so it often draws a third side — take every gift and those wins come quickly. From match three it stops gifting, and from match six it picks only its first few lines at random among the safe ones; every line it draws from the ninth line of the match onward is perfect. Even so, if both sides draw random safe lines until then, the position is still a theoretical win for you about three times in four, so the match is usually yours to lose — but from there you have to find the right line every time. Finally, the Save button appears only on a win screen: if you have just set a personal best, save it there before playing on, because a loss leaves nothing to save.