Dominos (video game)

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Dominos is an arcade snake game released in January 1977 by Atari, Inc. It came in two cabinet styles: an upright machine for 1–2 players, and a Dominos/4 cabinet that supports up to four players.

In the game, players move around the screen leaving lines of dominos behind them. The goal is to trap opponents by surrounding them with domino lines. Movement is controlled with four buttons (up, down, left, right). A player loses when they hit a wall, their own line, or another player's line; their line then falls away. Each round has a point winner, and matches go to a point total of 3, 4, 5, or 6 points.

Dominos was programmed by Dennis Koble at Atari, with Lyle Rains contributing the concept, graphics, and the AI for the computer opponent. The game shipped in January 1977 and introduced a computer-controlled opponent, enabling single-player play. Atari followed with Surround, another snake-style arcade game, later in 1977.

Reception noted the game as simple in visuals and gameplay, but still fun, especially in two-player mode.