Chipfire

Play

How to play

The goal: make every orb on the board yours.

  1. 1On your turn, place one orb in an empty cell or one you already own. Opponent cells cannot be clicked.
  2. 2A cell’s limit is its number of neighbours, because it throws one orb to each of them: 2 in corners, 3 on edges, 4 in the middle. The faint dots in an empty cell count them for you.
  3. 3On reaching the limit the cell explodes: it loses exactly that many orbs — it is not emptied — and one goes to each neighbour. Every neighbour it reaches becomes yours, however many orbs were sitting there.
  4. 4An explosion can push neighbours over their own limit, and so on. That is how one move flips half the board.

Reading the board

OrangeBlue
  • — Colour and orb shape both mark the owner. Both, never colour alone.
  • — A trembling cell is one orb away from detonating — whoever owns it.
  • — Hover a playable cell (or tap once on a touch screen) to see how far the chain would reach before you commit.
Try it hands-on, 2 minutes

The faint dots in an empty cell are its critical mass: how many neighbours it has, and so how many orbs make it fire. 2 in corners, 3 on edges, 4 in the middle.
Opponent

A new board ends the game in progress.