All of these games only need squared paper and a pen. No phone, no tablet, no computer: you can play them on a car ride, during the school break, in a waiting room or anywhere else where you have a sheet of paper and a second person.
And if there is no paper around, you can also try the games online right here.
Difficulty: Easy
2 or 3 players
Things get tighter and tighter on the shape! You take turns placing dominoes. Whoever places the last one wins. Who plans more cleverly?
On paper: Draw any shape on squared paper. The bigger it is, the longer the game takes. You need two colours or X and O, with three players a triangle is added.
Difficulty: Easy
2 players
The classic on paper! Let your marks drop down. Whoever first gets four in a row wins, horizontally, vertically or diagonally.
On paper: Draw a rectangle, 6 squares high and 7 squares wide. Draw the bottom line thick.
Difficulty: Easy
2 or 3 players
Draw lines and grab boxes! Whoever closes a box gets it and may draw another line right away. Who collects the most?
On paper: Draw any shape on squared paper and take turns drawing one line each. With three players you need three marks or three colours.
Difficulty: Medium
2 or 3 players
Put your numbers into the circles. The last free circle becomes the black hole, and all the numbers around it count! Where is your 10 worth it?
On paper: Draw 21 empty circles as a triangle (6 rows); with two players you place the numbers 1 to 10. With three players you draw 28 circles (7 rows) and place the numbers 1 to 9. You need pens in different colours.
Difficulty: Medium
2 or 3 players
TicTacToe with a twist! With your mark you decide in which row or column the next person has to play. Whoever first has three in a row wins.
On paper: Draw a board of 4 × 4 squares, label the columns A to D and the rows 1 to 4. With three players a triangle is added as the third mark.
Difficulty: Medium
2 players
One of you wants to get five identical marks in a row, the other causes chaos and has to prevent it. On every move you may choose: X or O?
On paper: Draw a board of 6 × 6 squares. You only need one pen, because the marks belong to nobody.
Difficulty: Medium
2 or 3 players
Cats, dogs and mice do not get along! Every animal has a protection zone that no animal of another kind may enter. Who gets the most animals onto the board in the end?
On paper: Draw a board of 7 × 7 squares. One of you draws cats, the other dogs, with three players mice join in. Draw heads or simple marks (X, O, triangle).
Difficulty: Medium
2 players
Take turns blackening squares and catch whole lines! Whoever blackens a line from edge to edge gets one point per square and plays again right away. Who catches more?
On paper: Draw a board of 6 × 6 squares. You take turns blackening one square. Whoever catches a line writes down the points and marks the squares of the line with a cross (Person 1) or a square (Person 2).
Difficulty: Tricky
2 players
TicTacToe with brains! Where you place your mark decides where the other person has to play next. Win three big fields in a row.
On paper: Draw a board of 3 × 3 small TicTacToe grids. Thick lines separate the big fields.
Difficulty: Tricky
2 players
Place empty circles or boxes and look for the corners of a square! When four of your marks sit on the corners of a square, they are filled in, and more appear inside the square. Who fills the most?
On paper: Draw a board of 7 × 7 squares. One of you draws empty circles, the other empty boxes. You colour in filled marks with the pen.
The games on this page are based on traditional paper-&-pen games, that is games with pen and paper that have been played for a long time. They do not belong to any one person, and there are many variants of them.
AI-generated website. All games run directly in your browser. No data is stored or sent.
Good ideas came from the website The Tabletop Family (opens in a new tab).
Contact/feedback/copyright violation: write2me@onlinepapergames.com.