Dots and Boxes is a game most people have played on the back of a school notebook. Diamond Boxes keeps the rules and changes the one thing nobody thinks to change: the board.

Instead of a square grid, you play on a diamond. Slanted edges, a single box at each of the four points, and no long straight walls to hide behind. Every chain runs differently from the one you are used to. If you already know the old game, half your instincts will be wrong — and working out which half is the fun of it.

HOW IT PLAYS

Take turns drawing one line. Close the fourth side of a box and it becomes yours, and you move again. Whoever holds the most boxes when the board fills up wins.

That is the whole rulebook. It is a strategy game wearing a doodle's clothes: the depth is all in the endgame, in knowing when to hand your opponent a couple of boxes so they cannot hand you twenty.

FIVE WAYS TO PLAY

• Against the computer, which does not go easy on you
• Two players on one device, passing the phone back and forth
• Online against anyone — tap Find a match and you are paired with another player, no code needed
• Online against a friend, using a short game code you share with a tap
• Direct challenges to anyone on the leaderboard

Online multiplayer works both ways. If you are both there, moves appear instantly. If you are not, it is a turn-by-turn game — play your move, get on with your day, and a notification tells you when it is your turn again. You can have five games running at once against different people.

A LEADERBOARD WORTH CLIMBING

Every finished online game moves your rating. Beating a stronger player is worth more than beating a weaker one, so grinding the same opponent stops paying off almost immediately. Finish one online game and you are on the board — then challenge anyone above you directly.

MAKE IT YOURS

Six themes, and they change the whole app rather than just recolouring the board:

• Classic — the familiar X and O
• Cards — hearts and spades on green baize
• Sun & Moon — warm and cool halves of the sky
• Chess — kings on a wooden board
• Neon — glowing cyan and magenta on near-black
• Retro Arcade — pixel-art invaders in phosphor green

Four board sizes, from a quick 25-box game to an 85-box war. Pinch to zoom when the board gets crowded.

NO NONSENSE

No ads. No energy bars, no timers pushing you to pay, nothing to buy. No tracking or analytics.

Play offline without an account. Sign in only when you want to play online or be ranked. If you want out, delete your account from inside the app and your data goes with it — nickname, rating, history, all of it.

Privacy policy: https://diamondboxes.app/privacy.html