Iron Dots Online

Iron Dots Online is an adaptation of classic Dots and Boxes paper and pencil game. There are already Dots games in Android Marketplace, but this one has an interesting twist, it’s Online so you can actually put your dots and boxes logic skills to test. So far the only way to play this game online was to share a device and play on one screen with the person near you, this game allows you to connect with some random person who is willing to play Iron Dots Online at the same time as you on their android device, much like Cestos 2. You can also practice this game while playing with the AI, which is located somewhere in the cloud so you will be connected to the internet.

Rules of the Dot game are quite easy, you have to place vertical or horizontal lines turn by turn: you, then your enemy. The player who”closes” the box by placing final line reserves the box with his element, thus getting a score. Usually the game sports a clean field, but in this android game it looks like it is generated semi-randomly and you have some sort of pattern on the field, making the map as unpredictable as it gets in this game. If you are not familiar with the classic Boxes & Squares game, just check out Tutorial in the menu which will be quite handy for you.

At the start, players usually place lines in random places in random order, but since real estate on the map becomes scarce, you should then think a few steps ahead, and when capturing of boxes begins, you have to think not to let your enemy get a box that will put him on a roll (chain), resulting in him covering most of the map and you – loosing. Sometime you may want to skip closing a box where you have an opportunity, since later you will be only left with choices that will let your opponent cover big chunks of the map. More experienced players just wait for the right moment to snatch the biggest chain and win only based on one successful move.

Graphics in this Android game are quite basic, good for a free games but not a match to most paid games, I hope future updates bring more variety in graphics and map sizes. Game has leader-boards powered by OpenFeint and a system of achievements. If you used to play this game with paper and pencil as a kid in school or somewhere else, you can refresh your strategy on a handy Wikipedia page of this game.

Scan or click to get Iron Dots Online game for Android. Free!

What I like:

• Online aspect of this classic game, there are not that many multi-player games available.
• Semi-random maps
• Leader-boards
• Free!

What I dislike:

• Waiting for opponent’s turn
• Game is quite new and needs some improvement, but since its release 2 days ago there are already 3 updates available.