OfficeGuilds

Battleship

A fleet duel for a longer break with a coworker: hide your ships and sink their fleet first.

  • Board
  • 2 players
  • ≈ 20 min

Set up a game

Loading…
Players
2
Time limit
15 minutes
Board
10 × 10

The game and an office break

Battleship: rules, tips to win and how it helps at work

How the game works

Battleship gives each player a private 10 × 10 grid. Place five straight ships, with lengths of five, four, three, three and two squares. They may touch, but they cannot overlap. Your opponent cannot see your fleet during the match.

If you have not submitted a complete placement before the 90-second setup window closes, the game assigns a legal fleet automatically. Once both fleets are ready, players alternate firing at squares they have not tried before.

Each shot reports a miss, a hit or a sunk ship. The turn passes after every shot, even a hit. Sink all five opposing ships first to win. Each shot has a 30-second turn clock, and an expired turn simply passes.

If neither fleet is sunk by the 15-minute match deadline, the game draws.

Tips to win

  1. A hit tells you a ship occupies that square, but not which way it runs.
  2. Test neighboring squares along a row or column, then follow the line when its direction becomes clear.
  3. A sunk ship is marked on your target board, freeing you to search elsewhere.
  4. Spread early exploratory shots across untested water rather than clustering around misses.
  5. Ships are allowed to touch, so an unknown square beside a sunk ship is still worth considering.
  6. Keep the 30-second turn clock in mind while choosing your next target.

Make it an office break

One colleague is in the office and another is working from home. They share a twenty-minute lunch window and choose a fleet duel instead of trying to fit a long board game into a short calendar gap.

Both arrange ships privately, then follow the same rhythm of shot, result and reply from their own desks. A hit changes the conversation: is the next square part of the same ship, or did the search find a different one?

After the match reveals the fleets, they can compare the routes they searched. The setup and 15-minute match limit leave a clear end to the break.

Why it helps at work

  • Works just as well for office and remote colleagues
  • Adds a playful search to a lunch break
  • Fifteen minutes with a clear finish

Play next

Related games