Dominoes

Dominoes is a small classic Mac take on the traditional tile game, written by Dale Blackwell in 1994 at version 1.3. The opening line of its description sets the tone: dominoes has the reputation of being an old man's game, but nothing could be further from the truth. The result is a quick, click-and-drag game against the computer.

How a round plays out

At the start of each round you are dealt seven bones from the standard set of 28. On your turn you click and drag a tile out to the playing area, with valid placements highlighted in white so the rules of matching ends never get in the way of the game.

Match play

Rather than a single hand, Dominoes tracks cumulative scores across multiple rounds, so a session has the rhythm of a longer match rather than a one-off draw.

Technical notes

The download is a tiny 40 KB 68k application that runs across the entire span from System 6 through Mac OS 9, making it easy to drop onto almost any vintage Mac for a quick game.