🚢 Battleship
🎲 Board · 2 playsBattleship
A search problem in disguise: locate five hidden ships before yours are found.
About Battleship
Battleship is usually remembered as pure guesswork, but the searching half of it responds well to method. Since the smallest vessel covers two squares, firing on a chequerboard pattern reaches every possible ship position using half the shots, which is why a systematic hunt finds the fleet far faster than scattered fire. Once a shot lands, the sensible play is to work along the axis until the ship is sunk, then return to the search pattern rather than picking at the surrounding water. Your own placement deserves the same thought: ships tucked against edges and kept apart are harder to find than a neat cluster in the middle, and the computer opponent switches into the same targeted hunt the moment it draws blood.
How to Play
Position your five ships, or let the game arrange them, then fire by choosing a square on the enemy grid. A hit tells you a ship crosses that square; follow the line to sink it. Sink all five enemy ships before your own fleet is destroyed.
💡 Tips & Strategy
Search on a parity pattern. The smallest ship is two cells long, so shooting every other square in a checkerboard cannot miss a ship entirely, and it halves the shots needed to find one.
Once you hit, work the axis. Fire either side along one direction until you either sink it or miss, then switch to the other — probing diagonally wastes the information the hit gave you.
Track what remains. If the four-cell ship is still out there, only stretches of four or more open cells can contain it, and large parts of the board can be excluded from your search entirely.
Ships cluster less than you expect near edges. The centre of the board offers more placements per square, so early searching there finds ships marginally sooner.