Line of Five

Line of Five is a card-and-chip board game for two to twelve players, built by QuickGameRoom. The board is a ten-by-ten grid showing every playing card twice, except the jacks, with a free square in each corner. You hold a hand of cards. On your turn you play one, put a chip on a square that shows that card, and draw. Five chips in a row, across, down or on a diagonal, make a line. Before a match you choose two or three teams, how many players sit on each (up to four), and how many lines win, from one to five. Teammates share a colour and alternate turns; the usual match is two teams racing to two lines, or three teams racing to one.

The jacks are the whole tactical layer. A black jack is wild and lets you take any open square, which is how you close a line your opponent thought was safe. A red jack cuts: it removes one enemy chip that is not already locked into a finished line. Holding a red jack and waiting for the right four-in-a-row to break is often worth more than playing it early.

Every square has a twin somewhere else on the board, so a card is only dead when both of its squares are taken. Once per turn you can swap a dead card for a fresh one before you play. Reading which of your cards are about to die, and clearing them while the swap is still free, is most of the difference between a close match and a lost one.

The layout is generated for each match from a seed, with the two copies of a card always at least three squares apart. That keeps the board honest, because no one can memorise a fixed layout, and it is the main reason we chose to make our own version rather than copy a printed board.

Play it three ways. Against the computer, which blocks threats and uses its jacks sensibly without peeking at your hand. Pass and play on one phone or laptop, where the hand is hidden behind a hand-over screen between turns. Or online: create a room, send the six-letter code or the invite link, and the match runs directly between your browsers over a peer-to-peer connection. There is no account and no game server; the host's browser runs the rules and sends every other seat only its own hand. If a friend drops out, the host can hand their seat to the computer and keep going.

Choose how you want to play from the menu, then select a card in your hand and tap one of the highlighted squares. A black jack lights up every open square; a red jack lights up the opponent chips it can remove.

Watch the row and diagonal through each chip you place, not just the obvious horizontal run. Keep a red jack in hand once an opponent reaches three in a row, and use a swap the moment a card goes dead rather than waiting for a better turn.

Our take: the best moments are the cuts, when a red jack lands on the one chip holding an opponent's line together. A two-player match runs twelve to twenty minutes; three players is faster and more chaotic, because one line is enough. The board stays readable on a phone in portrait, though a tablet or laptop makes the long diagonals easier to spot. If you want a shorter session, play three teams to one line against the computer; for a long evening, set up two teams of two and race to four or five.