When I tell people that I like domino games, they are often surprised to hear that you can do more than just match the numbers. If you look in a book of games, often with Mr. Hoyle’s name on the cover, you might find the basic game and maybe All Fives. If you’re lucky, you’ll find Chickenfoot and Mexican Train.
This is a collection of domino games and puzzles that will broaden your horizons beyond a chain of dominoes with matching numbers. You’ll find new games and puzzles that I designed, as well as some of my favourite domino games and puzzles by other designers.
- Unmatched Donimoes is a puzzle I designed where you have to slide all the dominoes into a rectangular shape, without sliding any matching numbers next to each other. (1 player, double-six dominoes)
- Capturing Donimoes is a puzzle I designed where you have to collect all the dominoes by sliding matching numbers next to each other. (1 player, double-six dominoes)
- Mirror Donimoes is a puzzle I designed where pawns walk around on top of the dominoes. (1 player, double-six dominoes, 4 pawns)
- Tetradominoes is a game I designed where you play matching dominoes in a grid, then try to play the tetromino shapes on top. (1-4 players, double-six dominoes, 7 cardboard tetrominoes, and some beads, buttons, or coins)
- Bee Donimoes is a puzzle race game I designed where a swarm of dice bring nectar back to the hive. (1-6 players, double-six dominoes, 3-6 dice, and a timer)
- Domino Finder is a memory game I designed where you have to find the treasure domino without falling in a trap. (2-4 players, double-six dominoes, pawns, and two dice)
- Mountains and Valleys is a solitaire game by Sid Sackson where you have to lay out a map that you can hike on. I added a cooperative version, and adapted it from paper, pencil, and dice to use dominoes. (1-4 players, double-six dominoes)
- Domino Runners is based on board games by Roland Siegers, where your runners run across a grid of dominoes, dropping checkers and trying to capture your opponent’s checkers. (2 players, double-six dominoes, and checkers)
- Fujisan is a solitaire game by James Droscha where you help four Shinto priests climb to the peak of Mount Fuji. I found 20 layouts that are much more challenging than usual. (1 player, double-six dominoes, and four pawns)
- Cobra Paw is a quick-reaction game by Derek Weston. (2-4 players, double-six dominoes, and two dice)
- All Fives is a traditional dominoes game, where you score points by making the ends add up to a multiple of five. (2-4 players, double-six dominoes)
- Classic Puzzles where you have to lay out dominoes in a given pattern to meet some goal, popularized by Henry Ernest Dudeney. Also includes Dominosa by O.S. Adler. (1 player, double-six dominoes, paper and pencil)
- Solutions
The book of rules includes problems to solve for each puzzle. The Unmatched Donimoes problems are patterns of dominoes for you to start from, like this:
The Dominosa problems are a pattern of numbers to join into dominoes, like this:
To try the games and puzzles, get a set of dominoes. Then either read the rules, download the PDF, or buy the book. Bonus feature: the book fits inside a standard dominoes tin.
If you’re interested, you can read about making donimoes or my design journal. If you’re brave, you can read about experiments in progress (PDF).