Paper and Pencil Games

Paper and pencil games. We all play these in school!

Race game

On a sheet of paper, draw the outline of a circle or oval. It does not have to be perfectly circular, and some unevenness can improve the game. Now draw another circle or oval inside that, more or less concentric with gap of one or two centimetres between the two. This produces a loop of "track".

Now draw a line anywhere across the two lines. This is the starting marker. A player starts by putting the point of a pen (or pencil) on the starting marker, placing their palm on top of it, and pushing it only using the palm of their hand. It should draw a short line before the pen slips. Where this line stops is the next starting point. If a player goes outside the path, they next start where their pencil left the track. The winner is the first to complete a lap.

Tic-tac-toe

Tic-tac-toe, also called noughts and crosses (in the British Commonwealth countries), X's and O's (in Ireland) and X and 0 (in India) is a pencil-and-paper game for two players, X and O, who take turns marking the spaces in a 3×3 grid. The X player usually goes first.The player who succeeds in placing three respective marks in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row wins the game.

Dots and Boxes

Begin by drawing a grid of dots on the paper. Using lined paper or graph paper can make this a little easier. The first person draws a line connecting two dots beside each other. The second player then draws another line to connect another two dots. The goal is to be the person who draws the last side of a square. Then you put your initials inside the square (or some other abbreviation to claim your square). In some versions of this game, if you complete a square you get another turn. The player with the most squares when all the squares are drawn is the winner.

Sprouts

If you can't quite master drawing a neat grid of dots, you might find this game easier. Draw dots randomly all over the paper. The first player draws a line between any two dots, and draws another dot in the middle of that line. The next player draws a line between any two dots, and puts a dot in the middle of that line. No lines may cross each other, but they don't have to be straight, so they can loop around other lines. Only three lines in total can emerge from any one dot. The dots put in the middle of the lines already have two lines connecting them to the two other dots, so they can only have one more line. The game continues until no more lines can be drawn. The person who did the last line is the winner.

Twins

1. One player writes the numbers 1 to 21 at random all over a sheet of paper. The other player then also writes the numbers 1 to 21 at random, making sure that any number is not too close to its identical number.

2. Players toss a coin to decide who will go first. That player draws a line (straight or curved) to join two of the same number (for example, the two 7s). The opposing player then draws a line between any other identical numbers (for example, the two 18s), as long as that line does not cross the line already drawn. Players take it in turns to draw lines (without crossing other lines) until one player cannot link any identical numbers.

3. The last player to join a pair of numbers wins. It can take some strategy to plan your earlier lines to make sure your opponent cannot place the last line in the game.