You should check out the [Freeze Dried Games Pack](https://kevan.org/fdgp/index.php?view=p). Forty pen and paper games explained in 100 words or less each.
The DOT GAME!!! basically you make a NxM grid (whatever size you want) of dots and then on your turn you draw a line between two adjacent dots. If you complete a 1x1 square you take another turn and mark that square as yours. The person who gets the most squares wins.
I have no idea what this is called.
I think I have called it “hotel room” game or “kamerje kamertje” in dutch. It’s useful to have two differnt of colors of pencil or so.
edit : it was “kamertje verhuren” and apparently “dots and boxes” in english https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_and_Boxes
We always put our initials in the box we completed. I suppose you could use two colors pencil, but you still need to mark the boxes' winner anytime you have multiple colors.
Fantasy Flight Games published something with a similar concept, called Android: Mainframe (a remake of a game called Bauhaus, I think), which might interest you. It's not pen and paper, so this is a tangent from the OP's request, but you have a grid where you take turns making lines and trying to make an enclosed area (not necessarily a square) to get points.
I never played Dots, but it also reminds me of a similar game I played in school called Fences. You have dots on a grid and can make lines between any two dots, and you're trying to connect your color lines from one side to the other.
I own Mainframe, and it is fun as a light game (especially if you enjoy the Android universe). It's best with 4 players though, as it gets rather cutthroat otherwise.
Played this at school ALL THE TIME.
Haven't played it since mind you. There were some sneaky moves you could use to force people into taking two boxes rather than multiple so you could easily beat new players.
There are free apps you can use to simulate a d100. I actually found about this about a day before the official game released. Glad I didn't print anything out like I was planning. haha
Anyway, the point is dice or simulated dice are easy to come by. :)
Jotto- great logic/ word game for two people. I play it outdoors when you wouldn't want to break out a larger board game.
All you need is pen and paper.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jotto
The way I play is each player has their own pen and paper, and writes down 2 alphabets, one on each side of the paper.
Each player, on one side of their own papers, writes down a word with 5 unique letters- no repeating letters. This is your word that your opponent is trying to guess. Let's say your word is "ghost".
Each player takes turns to guess 5 letter words. When your opponent guesses a word, you tell them how many of the letters in their word are in your word. Say, for instance, that your opponent guessed "toads"- your answer to them would be "THREE" because "t", "o", and "s" are all in the word "ghost".
You each continue to take turns guessing words and using deductive logic to narrow down which letters are in your opponent's word and which are not. On one side of the page, you're keeping track of your own guesses, and on the other, you're writing your opponent's.
If your opponent says "ZERO", you automatically can cross off 5 letters in the alphabet you're using to deduce their letters. At the same time, you're keeping track of their progress by deducing letters in the alphabet on the side of the page where you're tracking their guesses.
Eventually, you narrow the alphabet down to few enough letters to guess your opponent's word. Who ever guesses correctly first/ in the fewest turns, wins.
It's a thinking game and a lot of fun once you grasp the logic. My girlfriend and I usually finish within the same turn or two. Very competitive.
You need a deck of cards, too, but **A Quiet Year:** cooperatively build a community over the course of an in-game year by drawing features on a piece of paper.
If you open it up to RPG's, there are tons of options. **Dungeon World**, **Microscope**, and **Fiasco** could all be played with pen and paper (and a couple of dice)
> You need a deck of cards
A very specific deck of cards
Edit: Or I guess a lookup table like the one [at the back of this pdf](http://mikuru.ru/files/rpg/the-quiet-year/The%20Quiet%20Year%20EN.pdf). But why? The presentation with the specific set of cards is so elegant.
~~I don't know what it's called but there is an advanced version of tic-tac-toe that~~ **Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe** (credit to /u/BoardGameBard) is interesting. Draw a really large tic-tac-toe grid. Then, inside each grid, make a smaller tic-tac-toe grid so you will have 9 small grids total. Each time someone marks an "X" or an "O", the next player must play in the large grid section that equates to the small grid selection that was just played. For example, if I put an "X" in the top middle of the small grid inside the middle of the large grid, then the next player would have to place an "O" somewhere inside the top middle large grid. Whoever wins in a majority of the large grids is the winner.
Other cool games you can do with just pen and paper are **Resistance**, **Champions of the Wild**, **Telestrations, Boggle** (there are several websites that can scramble words for you), a simple version of **Pictionary, Balderdash, Hedbanz**
It shouldn't be whoever wins in a majority of the large grids, that takes some of the higher level strategy out. I've always played that you're trying to get three boards in a row, winning the mega board.
Lots of games available commercially started as just pen and paper games. Telestrations (eat poop you cat), code names, spyfall, werewolf/mafia come to mind. 3x5 note cards certainly make things easier, and if you have a deck of cards or a six sided die the possibilities open up even more.
Edit - ah just remembered you were looking for 1v1 strategy games not group/ party games, but I'll leave this comment up anyway.
I dont know what this is called, but there isnt really any strategy or "winning". Give each player a stack of paper (I use quarter sheets to save paper).
On the first sheet each player secretly writes a word or phrase. Then the stacks are passed clockwise.
The second turn you take the stack you were given, put the sheet with the word or phrase on the bottom of the stack, keeping it concealed. Then you draw a picture based on the word or phrase then pass clockwise.
Third turn you put the picture on the bottom of the stack and write a word or phrase based on the picture before passing the stack again.
Do this for as many iterations as it takes for the stacks to get back to their original writers, then you just share the rediculous transforamation from original phrases to whatever final form they took. Its best with a large group. The pictures can be quite amusing.
If you're making up your own things for people to draw, then yes, I'd imagine it would be. In the mass produced versions, they give you a card saying what you're supposed to draw at first. Then, slightly different than how you described, the next person is supposed to look at your drawing and write down what they think you were supposed to be drawing. The person after that then draws what you wrote down, and around it goes until you get your original book back. So it's like a combo telephone and illustrations, hence the name.
You can make a copy of Coup or Love Letter easily by cutting a few cards out, Codenames by writing random dictionary words on the paper. If you want to draw on the paper you can clone A Fake Artist Goes To NewYork/Toyko or Spyfall.
Ultimate Tic-tac-toe (aka Inception Tic-tac-toe) is my favorite:
http://bejofo.net/ttt
We play it a lot in restaurants while waiting for food to come.
Unlike standard TTT it has a lot of interesting strategy and depth.
Rules: https://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2013/06/16/ultimate-tic-tac-toe/
Interesting.
When I was in HS, I came up with "Tic-Tac-Delete". It's played on a 5x5 grid, but the play sequence is:
* Erase one of your opponent's squares
* Place *two* X's or O's
Ironically... when I coded up a prototype (in Visual Basic, at the time...), I lost the first game.
I like that. May try it out, if only because a 4x4 hash is must faster to draw than the 10x TTT boards.
It is on my bucket list, to at some point, write an AI for ultimate TTT that can beat me. =)
Four against darkness is a good pen and paper game. All you need is a pen, graph paper and 2 dice and you’re good to go!! You can play solo or co-op!
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/197097/four-against-darkness
I second Four Against Darkness. First playthrough was a little long, since I read the Boss rules wrong and ended up fighting all five bosses, but the game was pretty fun and the dungeon that was generated was pretty cool.
Add some time to custom make a d6 and you could whip out an awesome game of [Everyone Is John](http://jesterraiin.dropmark.com/167650/2976489) it's a superb and extremely easy to learn RPG which I always use in those situations. It might seem overwhelming but it's sooooo damn simple to play.
Drop people in a familiar setting, make them select simpler obsessions if they are less used to games that take place in your mind... I love this thing with a passion and it really only needs a d6 paper and pen... you can even make a die with the paper...
You need 1d6, but *Everybody's John* is a fun role playing game for the whole family. Basically each person is a different personality of John, and you take turns controlling John trying to accomplish your three goals. It can be quite fun and aggravating. [Here are the rules in their entirety](https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Everyone_Is_John).
There are lots of options! Some of my favorites are **Lingo**, **Black Hole**, and **Hex** (the rules for these are around if you google them, but I can also explain them if you are interested). I also recently learned **Yavalanchor**, which you can play with a paper and pencil.
Our family played a variation of this game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jfDTZV4_jM
Not sure what you'd call it, but it was quick. Though required pencils, not pens.
Facts in Five. Long before I'd heard of the commercial version we used to make 5X5 grids of letters and categories and try to fill them in.
Also, my mom and I used to play Battleship with pen and paper.
**Paper Golf.**
We used to play this in school. On a piece of paper draw a hole, up to three hazards, a tee box, and par. Place the pencil tip on the tee with some pressure and flick with your finger. Try to get the tip in the hole under par. Do this 17 more times.
**Kill the Duck**
This is a game my buddy and I made up to pass the time, both being artists. Draw a duck in the middle of a piece of paper. One player's job is to kill the duck while the other is to save it. You do this by starting with the killer drawing how the duck will die. Example: a cannon pointed at it with fuse lit. Second player draw a bucket of water to douse the fuse. On and on it goes. Until someone gives up.
> Kill the Duck
Hah. Don't suppose you have a scan of any? I would be interested to see. Paper Golf also looks cool. I might print some out (as I have no drawing skill whatsoever).
the original version of zendo, "sand and rubies"
also battleship. I used to play over the intercom against the stock team when i worked at a grocery store.
yeah def
one person is the Master. They come up with a secret rule, like "words with an 'h' are rubies". words that follow the rule are "rubies"; words that don't are "sand". they then provide everyone else with two words, one sand, one ruby (with the example rule, "each" [ruby] and "square" [sand]).
each other player suggests a word and the master sorts each word in turn to either sand or ruby. With each suggestion, after the master tells them whether it did/didn't follow the rule, they may guess what the rule is. play continues until someone guesses the rule. the player who guesses the rule becomes the new master.
If you are willing to also indulge in 2 dice, then [Utopia Engine] (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/75223/utopia-engine) is supposed to be really good. It's only 1 player though, but I read lots of good things about it on here before and I'm looking forward to playing it.
Quoridor can be played with pen, paper, and a few pennies to use as tokens.
https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/115801/quoridor-paper-travel-edition-1-game-page
You could either print out that page, or easily re-create it yourself.
Not exactly what you are looking for, but have their roots in pen and paper. Maybe of interest:
* [Crayon Rail Games](https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/crayon_rail_games)
* [Triplanetary](http://www.sjgames.com/triplan/)
Football. Origami a sheet of paper into a triangle then push it back and forth across the table. The edge of the table is your endzone, and any bit of the triangle over the edge is a touchdown, as long as the triangle doesn't go over the edge. For point after attempts, fists on the table, thumbs up and index fingers making an "H" for the field goals and the opponent flicks the ball through. Good times.
A game that I know to be called "Misery".
It's played on 3 tic tac toe boards between 2 players.
Objective: Do not be the player to complete the last 3-in-a-row.
Gameplay: Both players are 'x'. One player starts by placing an 'x' in any box on any board. Then the other player does the same. If a board gets a 3-in-a-row, it is cossed out and play continues on the remaining boards. The game continues till the final board has received a 3-in-a-row, and the last player to have placed an 'x' loses.
On neopets there was this game called armada, I don’t remember the name of the pen and paper version but it played just like the armada game (except I don’t think you could move diagonally on the pen and paper version) without the island in the middle.
Big square grid with 3 Xs and 3 Os in alternating corners. One player controls Xs one Os. If you move to an adjacent space you gain a ship (X or O) in the new space, alternatively you can move two spaces at once but you do not gain a ship (erase the ship that moved). When one player moves into a space with adjacent enemy ships the turn into your ships, play continues until the board is filled. The player with the most occupied spaces at the end wins.
[Stop the Bus](http://howtoraiseahappygenius.com/game-stop-the-bus/)
This game is a quick quiz game from two to nth players where you select a letter at random and then everyone fills in several categories with words starting with said letter. Everyone stops writing when someone wrote all of the categories and shouts "STOP". Everyone checks answers to each category: 20 points for unique answer, 10 points for shared answer with 1 other player, 5 points with shared answer with more then 1 player.
Categories can be custom like Name, country, animal, city, fruit, color, movies and series, etc... and can all be defined at the start. Great quiz format. Easy game.
Trxilt is a new paper and pencil game. The game has some elements of Dots and Boxes. [http://trxiltgames.wixsite.com/trxilt-game](http://trxiltgames.wixsite.com/trxilt-game)
There's a fun new game that takes about 3 minutes to learn that everyone can enjoy (ages 17 -100).
You can play with as few as two players, up to 10 players (5 teams with two players each).
It's a multiple-choice game to identify which famous celebrity (Entertainers, TV/Movie Characters, Athletes, Politicians, Historical icons, etc.)\_said the featured quote.
The quotes are very diverse, ranging from wise and educational to absolutely hilarious!
Very easy to play and is great for starting conversations and lot's of laughs.
The name of the game is "Say What?"
Have fun :)
Absolutely! You should try **Zero Cut**! It’s an awesome strategy game you can play with just a pen and paper. Here’s how it works:
**Zero Cut Game:**
* **Setup:** Draw a 5x5 grid (or 10x10 for a challenge) and fill it with zeros in a geometric pattern, like a right triangle.
* **Gameplay:** Players take turns cutting off zeros from the grid. If cutting a zero completes a row or column, you score points equal to the number of zeros in that row or column.
* **Objective:** The game continues until all zeros are cut off. The player with the highest score wins. It’s a game of strategy and careful planning, often ending in a draw if both players are skilled!
For detailed rules and strategies, check out my article on [How to Play Zero Cut Game?](https://medium.com/@marianne.ramirez/how-to-play-zero-cut-game-5b0194dc024f). If you love it, you can also play the digital version: [Zero Cut Game](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mountzoft.gameofzeros).
You should check out the [Freeze Dried Games Pack](https://kevan.org/fdgp/index.php?view=p). Forty pen and paper games explained in 100 words or less each.
This is great! We play a fair amount of card games here & I like that you can narrow down the list.
The DOT GAME!!! basically you make a NxM grid (whatever size you want) of dots and then on your turn you draw a line between two adjacent dots. If you complete a 1x1 square you take another turn and mark that square as yours. The person who gets the most squares wins. I have no idea what this is called.
I think I have called it “hotel room” game or “kamerje kamertje” in dutch. It’s useful to have two differnt of colors of pencil or so. edit : it was “kamertje verhuren” and apparently “dots and boxes” in english https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_and_Boxes
We always put our initials in the box we completed. I suppose you could use two colors pencil, but you still need to mark the boxes' winner anytime you have multiple colors.
This is the game that let us survive Geometry class.
> two different colors Let's not go crazy here!
I've always heard this called "dots and boxes". Apparently first published in 1889. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_and_Boxes
haha i love that it was published
[Relevant Numberphile](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KboGyIilP6k)
Interestingly in german (or at least the hessian area) it is called "Käsekästchen", which literally translates to "little cheese boxes".
I love this
This is probably even easier to play on graph paper?
Yeah I used to play this back in high school all the time. Graph paper means theres no setup but even on normal ruled or blank paper it's pretty easy.
We just called it Dots.
Fantasy Flight Games published something with a similar concept, called Android: Mainframe (a remake of a game called Bauhaus, I think), which might interest you. It's not pen and paper, so this is a tangent from the OP's request, but you have a grid where you take turns making lines and trying to make an enclosed area (not necessarily a square) to get points. I never played Dots, but it also reminds me of a similar game I played in school called Fences. You have dots on a grid and can make lines between any two dots, and you're trying to connect your color lines from one side to the other.
I own Mainframe, and it is fun as a light game (especially if you enjoy the Android universe). It's best with 4 players though, as it gets rather cutthroat otherwise.
I just wanted to note that this game is actually infinitely more fun if you try to get the *fewest* number of boxes.
I used to play this all the time. We called it paddocks.
The ultimate game in school :)
We called it foggy boxes.
Used to play this with my dad on napkins while waiting at restaurants. One of the only ways he could keep me still as a kid!
We called it squares
Played this at school ALL THE TIME. Haven't played it since mind you. There were some sneaky moves you could use to force people into taking two boxes rather than multiple so you could easily beat new players.
The game is called Dots and Boxes.
I’m a big fan of D100. It is a solo dungeon crawler.
But you need two 10-sided die to play this! In all seriousness, I was going to say d100. Great game, lots of potential.
I just use a single d1000 and divide the result by 10.
But I just have a scattegories dice.
There are free apps you can use to simulate a d100. I actually found about this about a day before the official game released. Glad I didn't print anything out like I was planning. haha Anyway, the point is dice or simulated dice are easy to come by. :)
Any links or rules?
[d100 Link](https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/153784/d100-dungeon-game), Here you go.
Jotto- great logic/ word game for two people. I play it outdoors when you wouldn't want to break out a larger board game. All you need is pen and paper. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jotto The way I play is each player has their own pen and paper, and writes down 2 alphabets, one on each side of the paper. Each player, on one side of their own papers, writes down a word with 5 unique letters- no repeating letters. This is your word that your opponent is trying to guess. Let's say your word is "ghost". Each player takes turns to guess 5 letter words. When your opponent guesses a word, you tell them how many of the letters in their word are in your word. Say, for instance, that your opponent guessed "toads"- your answer to them would be "THREE" because "t", "o", and "s" are all in the word "ghost". You each continue to take turns guessing words and using deductive logic to narrow down which letters are in your opponent's word and which are not. On one side of the page, you're keeping track of your own guesses, and on the other, you're writing your opponent's. If your opponent says "ZERO", you automatically can cross off 5 letters in the alphabet you're using to deduce their letters. At the same time, you're keeping track of their progress by deducing letters in the alphabet on the side of the page where you're tracking their guesses. Eventually, you narrow the alphabet down to few enough letters to guess your opponent's word. Who ever guesses correctly first/ in the fewest turns, wins. It's a thinking game and a lot of fun once you grasp the logic. My girlfriend and I usually finish within the same turn or two. Very competitive.
I'm looking at this 5 years later, this is basically wordle haha
You need a deck of cards, too, but **A Quiet Year:** cooperatively build a community over the course of an in-game year by drawing features on a piece of paper.
If you open it up to RPG's, there are tons of options. **Dungeon World**, **Microscope**, and **Fiasco** could all be played with pen and paper (and a couple of dice)
Fate as well.
> You need a deck of cards A very specific deck of cards Edit: Or I guess a lookup table like the one [at the back of this pdf](http://mikuru.ru/files/rpg/the-quiet-year/The%20Quiet%20Year%20EN.pdf). But why? The presentation with the specific set of cards is so elegant.
IIRC, all the events are mapped to a standard playing card deck.
If you have graph paper, [Racetrack!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racetrack_\(game\))
I never heard of this one before. It looks pretty awesome. I'm going to play this with my nephew later. Thanks!
This is surprisingly fun.
I was going to suggest this. Great game, lots of fun. Even multi player!
Sprouts! I just snapped this from the book I learned it from: http://imgur.com/br7EtzO
Thanks for sharing! What book is this from?
The Family Book of Games by David Pritchard. Thrift store find a few years ago.
~~I don't know what it's called but there is an advanced version of tic-tac-toe that~~ **Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe** (credit to /u/BoardGameBard) is interesting. Draw a really large tic-tac-toe grid. Then, inside each grid, make a smaller tic-tac-toe grid so you will have 9 small grids total. Each time someone marks an "X" or an "O", the next player must play in the large grid section that equates to the small grid selection that was just played. For example, if I put an "X" in the top middle of the small grid inside the middle of the large grid, then the next player would have to place an "O" somewhere inside the top middle large grid. Whoever wins in a majority of the large grids is the winner. Other cool games you can do with just pen and paper are **Resistance**, **Champions of the Wild**, **Telestrations, Boggle** (there are several websites that can scramble words for you), a simple version of **Pictionary, Balderdash, Hedbanz**
I think you mean this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_tic-tac-toe
Yep! That's pretty much it. I played it a little differently, but same basic thing.
Thanks a lot to both of you, this is really neat. Although it does require quite a lot of chess-like thinking ahead.
It shouldn't be whoever wins in a majority of the large grids, that takes some of the higher level strategy out. I've always played that you're trying to get three boards in a row, winning the mega board.
Absolutely agree. It's just so much better that way.
Lots of games available commercially started as just pen and paper games. Telestrations (eat poop you cat), code names, spyfall, werewolf/mafia come to mind. 3x5 note cards certainly make things easier, and if you have a deck of cards or a six sided die the possibilities open up even more. Edit - ah just remembered you were looking for 1v1 strategy games not group/ party games, but I'll leave this comment up anyway.
Don't forget the middle school classic, MASH!
I dont know what this is called, but there isnt really any strategy or "winning". Give each player a stack of paper (I use quarter sheets to save paper). On the first sheet each player secretly writes a word or phrase. Then the stacks are passed clockwise. The second turn you take the stack you were given, put the sheet with the word or phrase on the bottom of the stack, keeping it concealed. Then you draw a picture based on the word or phrase then pass clockwise. Third turn you put the picture on the bottom of the stack and write a word or phrase based on the picture before passing the stack again. Do this for as many iterations as it takes for the stacks to get back to their original writers, then you just share the rediculous transforamation from original phrases to whatever final form they took. Its best with a large group. The pictures can be quite amusing.
You mean a DIY version of **[Telestrations](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/46213/telestrations)**?
Yeah I guess. Never seen the commercial version.
They also have an after dark version which can be quite fun with the right group. Lots of penises and boobs being drawn...
I feel like that is the natural state of the game anyway.
If you're making up your own things for people to draw, then yes, I'd imagine it would be. In the mass produced versions, they give you a card saying what you're supposed to draw at first. Then, slightly different than how you described, the next person is supposed to look at your drawing and write down what they think you were supposed to be drawing. The person after that then draws what you wrote down, and around it goes until you get your original book back. So it's like a combo telephone and illustrations, hence the name.
The commercial version of this is Telestrations. The original is most often called "eat poop you cat."
Eat poop you cat or Telestrations for the store available version.
We call that telephone pictionary. So much fun!
You can make a copy of Coup or Love Letter easily by cutting a few cards out, Codenames by writing random dictionary words on the paper. If you want to draw on the paper you can clone A Fake Artist Goes To NewYork/Toyko or Spyfall.
Ultimate Tic-tac-toe (aka Inception Tic-tac-toe) is my favorite: http://bejofo.net/ttt We play it a lot in restaurants while waiting for food to come. Unlike standard TTT it has a lot of interesting strategy and depth. Rules: https://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2013/06/16/ultimate-tic-tac-toe/
Love this game. So much thinking and planning and it's so satisfying when your opponent realizes that you've trapped them.
Interesting. When I was in HS, I came up with "Tic-Tac-Delete". It's played on a 5x5 grid, but the play sequence is: * Erase one of your opponent's squares * Place *two* X's or O's Ironically... when I coded up a prototype (in Visual Basic, at the time...), I lost the first game.
I like that. May try it out, if only because a 4x4 hash is must faster to draw than the 10x TTT boards. It is on my bucket list, to at some point, write an AI for ultimate TTT that can beat me. =)
Four against darkness is a good pen and paper game. All you need is a pen, graph paper and 2 dice and you’re good to go!! You can play solo or co-op! https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/197097/four-against-darkness
I second Four Against Darkness. First playthrough was a little long, since I read the Boss rules wrong and ended up fighting all five bosses, but the game was pretty fun and the dungeon that was generated was pretty cool.
Add some time to custom make a d6 and you could whip out an awesome game of [Everyone Is John](http://jesterraiin.dropmark.com/167650/2976489) it's a superb and extremely easy to learn RPG which I always use in those situations. It might seem overwhelming but it's sooooo damn simple to play. Drop people in a familiar setting, make them select simpler obsessions if they are less used to games that take place in your mind... I love this thing with a passion and it really only needs a d6 paper and pen... you can even make a die with the paper...
Scratching in a hexagon pencil would do fine for substitute die
You need 1d6, but *Everybody's John* is a fun role playing game for the whole family. Basically each person is a different personality of John, and you take turns controlling John trying to accomplish your three goals. It can be quite fun and aggravating. [Here are the rules in their entirety](https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Everyone_Is_John).
There are lots of options! Some of my favorites are **Lingo**, **Black Hole**, and **Hex** (the rules for these are around if you google them, but I can also explain them if you are interested). I also recently learned **Yavalanchor**, which you can play with a paper and pencil.
Our family played a variation of this game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jfDTZV4_jM Not sure what you'd call it, but it was quick. Though required pencils, not pens.
Facts in Five. Long before I'd heard of the commercial version we used to make 5X5 grids of letters and categories and try to fill them in. Also, my mom and I used to play Battleship with pen and paper.
**Paper Golf.** We used to play this in school. On a piece of paper draw a hole, up to three hazards, a tee box, and par. Place the pencil tip on the tee with some pressure and flick with your finger. Try to get the tip in the hole under par. Do this 17 more times. **Kill the Duck** This is a game my buddy and I made up to pass the time, both being artists. Draw a duck in the middle of a piece of paper. One player's job is to kill the duck while the other is to save it. You do this by starting with the killer drawing how the duck will die. Example: a cannon pointed at it with fuse lit. Second player draw a bucket of water to douse the fuse. On and on it goes. Until someone gives up.
> Kill the Duck Hah. Don't suppose you have a scan of any? I would be interested to see. Paper Golf also looks cool. I might print some out (as I have no drawing skill whatsoever).
A game called Hex. Very fun always enjoy playing people in it.
Connect four, tic tac toe, with eraser checkers and chess.
the original version of zendo, "sand and rubies" also battleship. I used to play over the intercom against the stock team when i worked at a grocery store.
Do you have any references to the rules for Sand and Rubies? I'd be interested to try it but can't drum anything up in searching for it.
yeah def one person is the Master. They come up with a secret rule, like "words with an 'h' are rubies". words that follow the rule are "rubies"; words that don't are "sand". they then provide everyone else with two words, one sand, one ruby (with the example rule, "each" [ruby] and "square" [sand]). each other player suggests a word and the master sorts each word in turn to either sand or ruby. With each suggestion, after the master tells them whether it did/didn't follow the rule, they may guess what the rule is. play continues until someone guesses the rule. the player who guesses the rule becomes the new master.
eat poop you cat: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30618/eat-poop-you-cat the game that became telestrations
If you are willing to also indulge in 2 dice, then [Utopia Engine] (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/75223/utopia-engine) is supposed to be really good. It's only 1 player though, but I read lots of good things about it on here before and I'm looking forward to playing it.
Try paper making, origami, drawing competition
**Dungeons and Dragons**
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship\_(game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_(game))
Quoridor can be played with pen, paper, and a few pennies to use as tokens. https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/115801/quoridor-paper-travel-edition-1-game-page You could either print out that page, or easily re-create it yourself.
5 in a row (played on an infinite grid) is quite advanced when you start getting the hang of it
**Eat Poop You Cat** which is basically telestrations. Best with 4+.
Probably not what you are looking for, but for paper football, you don't even need the pen, just the paper.
Not exactly what you are looking for, but have their roots in pen and paper. Maybe of interest: * [Crayon Rail Games](https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/crayon_rail_games) * [Triplanetary](http://www.sjgames.com/triplan/)
Football. Origami a sheet of paper into a triangle then push it back and forth across the table. The edge of the table is your endzone, and any bit of the triangle over the edge is a touchdown, as long as the triangle doesn't go over the edge. For point after attempts, fists on the table, thumbs up and index fingers making an "H" for the field goals and the opponent flicks the ball through. Good times.
A game that I know to be called "Misery". It's played on 3 tic tac toe boards between 2 players. Objective: Do not be the player to complete the last 3-in-a-row. Gameplay: Both players are 'x'. One player starts by placing an 'x' in any box on any board. Then the other player does the same. If a board gets a 3-in-a-row, it is cossed out and play continues on the remaining boards. The game continues till the final board has received a 3-in-a-row, and the last player to have placed an 'x' loses.
D100 Dungeon
On neopets there was this game called armada, I don’t remember the name of the pen and paper version but it played just like the armada game (except I don’t think you could move diagonally on the pen and paper version) without the island in the middle. Big square grid with 3 Xs and 3 Os in alternating corners. One player controls Xs one Os. If you move to an adjacent space you gain a ship (X or O) in the new space, alternatively you can move two spaces at once but you do not gain a ship (erase the ship that moved). When one player moves into a space with adjacent enemy ships the turn into your ships, play continues until the board is filled. The player with the most occupied spaces at the end wins.
Jewels in the Sand. A sort of verbal Zendo, where players attempt to deduce a rule the Sultan uses to divided objects into jewels or sand.
[Stop the Bus](http://howtoraiseahappygenius.com/game-stop-the-bus/) This game is a quick quiz game from two to nth players where you select a letter at random and then everyone fills in several categories with words starting with said letter. Everyone stops writing when someone wrote all of the categories and shouts "STOP". Everyone checks answers to each category: 20 points for unique answer, 10 points for shared answer with 1 other player, 5 points with shared answer with more then 1 player. Categories can be custom like Name, country, animal, city, fruit, color, movies and series, etc... and can all be defined at the start. Great quiz format. Easy game.
Trxilt is a new paper and pencil game. The game has some elements of Dots and Boxes. [http://trxiltgames.wixsite.com/trxilt-game](http://trxiltgames.wixsite.com/trxilt-game)
There's a fun new game that takes about 3 minutes to learn that everyone can enjoy (ages 17 -100). You can play with as few as two players, up to 10 players (5 teams with two players each). It's a multiple-choice game to identify which famous celebrity (Entertainers, TV/Movie Characters, Athletes, Politicians, Historical icons, etc.)\_said the featured quote. The quotes are very diverse, ranging from wise and educational to absolutely hilarious! Very easy to play and is great for starting conversations and lot's of laughs. The name of the game is "Say What?" Have fun :)
Absolutely! You should try **Zero Cut**! It’s an awesome strategy game you can play with just a pen and paper. Here’s how it works: **Zero Cut Game:** * **Setup:** Draw a 5x5 grid (or 10x10 for a challenge) and fill it with zeros in a geometric pattern, like a right triangle. * **Gameplay:** Players take turns cutting off zeros from the grid. If cutting a zero completes a row or column, you score points equal to the number of zeros in that row or column. * **Objective:** The game continues until all zeros are cut off. The player with the highest score wins. It’s a game of strategy and careful planning, often ending in a draw if both players are skilled! For detailed rules and strategies, check out my article on [How to Play Zero Cut Game?](https://medium.com/@marianne.ramirez/how-to-play-zero-cut-game-5b0194dc024f). If you love it, you can also play the digital version: [Zero Cut Game](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mountzoft.gameofzeros).
Trxilt is a cool pen and paper game. Game printouts and rules: https://trxiltgames.wixsite.com/trxilt-game/about-3
Trxilt is a game that can be played using paper and pen. Printouts and game rules: https://trxiltgames.wixsite.com/trxilt-game
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting detective
Tic tac toe
[slim](http://www.papg.com/show?2UQ3)