How to start
- Open bigboard.games on every device and tap Start a table on one of them.
- The others join by themselves on the same Wi-Fi; elsewhere, scan the QR code or type the four-letter code.
- Lay the devices edge to edge, screens up, as the drawing shows, and pick the game.
How the bot thinks
The bot has a single level. On each turn it gives every free point a quick score: the dots it would capture now, the capture it would block by filling your closing point, the danger of leaving you a capture, and how the dot sits beside its own chain and your dots, with a little seeded noise so its games vary.
Then it plays out its eight best candidates on a copy of the board, looking for moves that leave it two captures at once, since you can block only one. It passes only when every move would lose it more than passing. It is a patient opponent for practice, not a solver, much like the chess bot.
Playing it on your own
Start a table on one phone or tablet, add a bot, and pick Islands. The sheet is yours to scroll and zoom; the bot plays on your device, and its dots simply appear on the sheet. It waits a human-like pause before each move, between 0.9 and 2.8 seconds, so the game keeps a rhythm instead of instant replies.
The move timer applies to you as usual, 30 seconds by default, 15, or no limit. Captures score the same against the bot: one dot is worth 1, two are worth 3, three are worth 6. With a friend on the same screen, it's the 2 player dots game.
Boards and edges
The board options are the ones you'd use with a friend in the dots game for two: small, regular or large, with edges that wrap around or a bordered sheet. On a wrap-around sheet a fence can leave one side and come back on the other, so the bot's rings can close across the edge as well as yours.
Zoomed in, you may not see where the bot just played. A small disc in its colour then sits at the nearest edge of your screen and points at its last dot; tap it and the view glides there.
With bots: questions and answers
Is there one bot level?
Yes, a single level that weighs captures, blocks and threats and plays out its best eight moves.
Is this dots and boxes against the computer?
No, you capture by surrounding the bot's dots, not by drawing lines to close boxes as in dots and boxes.
Can I play the bot on a phone?
Yes, on a phone or a tablet, with no app and no sign-up.