About Block Out
Block Out is a small game about using up space. Every piece you place takes one square for itself and spoils up to eight more around it. The board shrinks fast, and the winner is whoever gets the final move.
How a match works
The board is six squares by six. On your turn, tap any white square. Your piece goes there, and the squares next to it in all eight directions turn grey. Nobody can play on a grey square.
A piece in the open blocks eight neighbours. A piece on an edge blocks five. A piece in a corner blocks only three. Squares that are already grey are simply left as they are.
Turns alternate until no white square remains. The player who made the last move wins. Games usually last between six and ten moves in total, and the first player is chosen at random.
How to win
Count the moves that are left. Near the end, look at the white squares and work out how many more pieces can be placed. If the number is odd and it is your turn, you are winning: you will place the first and the last of them.
Look for isolated squares. A white square with no white neighbours is worth exactly one move, whoever takes it. Groups of white squares are different, because one piece may use up the whole group or only part of it.
Control the groups. A patch of two or three white squares in a row can be finished in one move, by playing in the middle, or stretched into two, by playing at an end. Choosing which is how you change who gets the last move.
Play centrally at the start to block the most squares, and at the edges later when you need to leave room.
A match takes about a minute. For two-player HTML5 games with real tactics, that is remarkably short.