Terni Lapilli

Terni Lapilli is an ancient Roman three-in-a-row game with a sliding twist that keeps it from ever stalling into a draw. Each side has just three stones. First you take turns placing them, then you shuffle them around the board hunting for a straight line of three down any row, column, or diagonal.

• Placement: take turns dropping one stone on an empty point, but the very first stone of the game may not be the centre.
• Movement: once all six stones are down, slide one of your stones to an adjacent empty point.
• The centre point connects to all eight rim points; each rim point connects to its two neighbours and the centre.
• Form a straight line of three to win the round.

• Vs computer: three difficulty levels, easy, medium, and hard.
• Hot-seat: pass-and-play with a friend on one screen.
• Online: create an invite code, join one, or quick-match a stranger.

• Desktop: click an empty point to place a stone; in the movement phase click your stone to select it, then click an adjacent empty point.
• Phone & tablet: tap a point to place, tap your stone to pick it up, then tap where it should slide. Legal destinations glow gold.

• Grabbing the centre during placement gives you the most sliding routes later, so fight for it after the opening stone.
• Set up a 'fork', a stone that could complete two different lines on its next slide, so your opponent cannot block both.

Terni lapilli is the Roman ancestor of noughts and crosses, and we know it mostly from the boards themselves: three-by-three grids scratched into pavements, steps and temple floors all over the Roman world, including on the Forum. They are graffiti, left by people waiting.

It is not quite the game children play now. Each player has only three pieces, so once all six are placed the game continues by moving them — which means it cannot end in the dead draw that makes modern noughts and crosses pointless between adults. Ovid mentions a three-in-a-row game in the Ars Amatoria as something worth knowing socially, which is a fair indication of how commonplace it was.

Further reading: Chalked All Over Rome

Terni Lapilli is a Roman alignment game, related to nine men's morris, whose scratched boards still survive on ancient pavements. This is an original, free browser build of the public-domain classic, no download or sign-up needed.

A free, original browser game on PlayPendium. No download, no install.

1. Chalked All Over Rome

   A three-pebble game left its grid scratched across an empire, and left almost none of its rules behind.