Domino Slam

It's evening on the veranda, the bulb is on over the old painted table and four players are pulling up chairs. Domino Slam is proper four-player dominoes: a double-six set, seven tiles each and nothing left over. Whoever holds double six leads the first hand, play goes anticlockwise, and if you can't match an end you knock. Play your last tile and shout domino; if nobody can move, the game is blocked and the lowest pip count takes it. First side to six hands wins the match, and win it six to nothing and it's a six love. By tradition, the losers go under the table.

Then there's the slam. Tap a tile to place it, or press and hold to wind it up, let go and bring it down hard. The table cracks, the camera shakes, every tile nearby hops, dust puffs up off the boards, the bottle rattles and the bulb swings on its cord. The computer players slam too, especially on a winning tile or a block, and they talk while they do it: Frank is loud, Rosa is polite until she isn't, and Leo never stops.

Play Partner, the classic game, with Rosa as your partner against Frank and Leo, or Cutthroat, where it's every one for themselves. The computer players remember who has knocked on which numbers, dump their heavy tiles early, lock out opponents and look after their partner, so you'll have to count tiles too. The line of play snakes around the table, everyone's hand is laid open at the end of each round, and the score is kept in tally marks.

The whole table is real-time 3D: ivory tiles with bevelled edges and inlaid pips, a worn turquoise table, a concrete slab, zinc fence and banana leaves, with warm light and soft shadows from a single bare bulb. Every sound is made live, from the wooden crack of a slam to the knock of a pass and the crickets. It plays in portrait or landscape with touch, mouse or keyboard.