Sea Battle is the pen-and-paper ship game played in classrooms for a hundred years. Two players hide a fleet on a grid and take turns guessing where the other one's ships are.
Sea Battle in one minute
- Each player has a 10×10 grid and ten ships.
- Ships lie in straight lines and may not touch, not even at the corners.
- Take turns firing at one square. A hit gives you another shot.
- A ship sinks when all its squares are hit. Sink all ten to win.
The fleet
The fleet is one ship of four squares, two of three, three of two and four single squares: ten ships covering twenty squares out of a hundred.
Ships are placed across or down, never diagonally and never bent. There has to be at least one square of open water between any two ships, including diagonally.
Arranging your ships on Deckbreak
- The game starts with a random arrangement, so you can press Ready straight away.
- Drag a ship to move it. Tap a ship to turn it.
- A ship turns red if it would overlap or touch another one, and goes back to where it was.
- Shuffle deals a completely new arrangement.
Shots, hits and sunk ships
On your turn, tap a square in enemy waters. A miss leaves a white dot and passes the turn. A hit leaves a red cross and you shoot again, for as long as you keep hitting.
When the last square of a ship is hit, the ship is sunk and its outline is shown. Because ships can't touch, every square around a sunk ship must be empty, so the game marks them for you with small dots.
Finding ships faster
Don't shoot at random. While the four-square ship is afloat, fire along diagonals four squares apart: it can't hide between them. Once it is sunk, tighten the pattern to every third square, then every second.
After a hit, try the four neighbouring squares. A second hit tells you which way the ship lies; follow that line in both directions until it sinks.
The single-square ships are found last and by elimination. Keep track of which regions are too small to hold anything bigger.
Hiding your fleet
- Ships along the edge give away less: a sunk ship in the middle reveals up to fourteen empty squares, one in a corner far fewer.
- Don't make a pattern. People who always put the big ship in a corner get found quickly by anyone who has played them before.
- Spread the single squares out. They are what the game comes down to.
- Leave some open water on purpose. An opponent who searches methodically wastes shots there.
Playing a friend
Press Play with friends and send the link. Your friend opens it, you both arrange your fleets and press Ready, and the first shot is decided at random. If the connection drops, opening the link again puts you back in the same game.