Dominoes, also known as bones, cards, or men, are rectangular blocks of wood or polystyrene with a flat bottom and one or more curved sides. They are normally twice as long as they are wide, making them easy to stack and re-stack.
Each domino has an identifying mark on one side and is blank or identically patterned on the other. The identifying mark is normally an arrangement of dots, or pips, like those on a die, although some sets use more readable Arabic numerals instead. The value of a particular domino is indicated by the number of its pips, and each suit of dominoes has a different rank or weight.
The most common domino set in the West contains 28 tiles. Larger sets exist and are used for games with more than four players or for those who want to play long domino chains. Most domino play consists of layout games, which fall into two main categories: blocking games and scoring games.
When playing a blocking game, the first player to place a tile establishes a line or path for other players to follow. Each subsequent player must follow that path, placing a domino adjacent to (or perpendicular to) the previous tile to form a chain. Generally, the last domino played must be a double. This makes the chain’s shape a “snake-line.”
A chain is scored when all exposed ends match: i.e., one’s touch one’s and two’s touch two’s. When a domino is played to a double, the chain is positioned perpendicular to the second tile. The total points of the exposed ends is then counted.
Blocking games are normally played by pairs of players, with one player sitting opposite the other. The winners are the partners whose combined sum of all remaining dominoes is the least. Occasionally, a single player may win the game by knocking out all of his or her dominoes.
When a domino is tapped ever-so-slightly, it elicits a hypnotic cascade of movement, called the Domino Effect. In writing, the Domino Effect can be a powerful tool for establishing rhythm and movement in your story.
Try this fun, interactive game with your kids. Take a piece of paper and a few selected domino tile colours, make a trail of colour with the tiles and ask your kids to pick a domino that matches that colour on the paper. It’s a great way to teach kids about numbers and counting, whilst also helping them to recognise and name colours. For older children, you can also play a memory or concentration game with the dominoes. You could write the names of the colours on each domino, then ask them to match up the correct colour with the written name on each one. You could even make the dominoes a little more challenging by making them directional too. For example, asking them to match up the colours of the diagonally opposite sides of the triangle. This can really get their brains working!