Sea Battle is a game of hidden fleets. You and the computer each hide five ships on a square sea, then take turns firing at squares you cannot see. The first to find and sink all of the other fleet wins. It is a game of careful guessing and good searching.

How to play

First, place your fleet. The sea has 10 rows and 10 columns. You have five ships, of 5, 4, 3, 3 and 2 squares:

On a phone or tablet: drag a ship to where you want it. Or tap a ship and then tap a square. Tap a ship that is already chosen to turn it.
On a computer: drag a ship with the mouse, and click a chosen ship to turn it.

If you would rather not choose, press Shuffle and the ships are placed for you. When you are happy, press Start battle.

Then take turns. Tap or click a square on the enemy sea to fire. A red cross is a hit and a white ring is a miss. When every square of a ship has been hit, it sinks, and you are told which ship it was. The computer fires at your sea in the same way, and you can see where its shots have landed.

The game ends when one side has sunk the whole of the other fleet.

The levels

The only thing that changes is how the computer shoots.

Easy: it fires at random squares.
Medium: it fires at random until it hits, and then searches the squares around the hit until the ship sinks.
Hard: it works out where your ships could still fit on the sea, and fires where they are most likely to be.
Expert: it checks every place your ships could hide. When it hits something, it finishes the ship quickly.

Today's game

There is a Medium game each day, built from the same seed for everyone. If you stop part way through, the game is saved on your device.

Tips

When hunting, do not fire at neighboring squares. Fire at every other square in a checkerboard pattern. The smallest ship is two squares long, so it cannot hide from that pattern.
Once you get a hit, fire at the four squares next to it. When a second hit lines up with the first, continue along that line in both directions.
When the game announces a sunk ship, note its length. A hit square next to it may belong to a second ship, so keep searching there before you move on.
Remember the ships by length. If the 5-square ship has already sunk, you can ignore long empty stretches that only it would fit in.
When you place your fleet, spread the ships out and mix up horizontal and vertical. A tidy pattern is a pattern the computer can guess.
Do not hide every ship along the edge. The computer on Hard and Expert is good at working out places ships can fit, and the edges are the first places it checks.
Keep two ships close together at least once. A cluster can make the computer waste shots on a single hit that was really two ships.

A bit of history

The idea of hiding a fleet on a grid and calling out squares was played with pencil and paper long before it was ever a computer game.

Questions

How do I turn a ship? Tap or click it once it is chosen. It switches between lying across and standing up and down.

Can ships touch each other? They cannot overlap. Beyond that, you are free to place them where you like.

How do I know a ship has sunk? The game tells you, and names the ship.

Can I start again from the placement screen? Yes. Press Shuffle to place the ships in a new way before you start the battle.

Sea Battle