How to play
PAPER LAND is a territory game in which everything is made of cut paper on a sheet of graph paper. You are a folded-paper token, and you start on a small patch of paper in your colour in the middle of the sheet. The goal is to cover a set share of the board with your own paper. The bar at the top shows your share and the goal, and a table beside it ranks the five biggest players.
Your token moves towards the mouse cursor. You can also steer in eight directions with W A S D or the arrow keys, or on a phone by dragging anywhere on the screen. The token never stops.
When you leave your land, you lay a lighter paper strip behind you. Steer back into your land and everything inside the loop is cut out and becomes yours, even rival land you have closed in. While the strip is out, you are vulnerable. If a rival crosses your strip, you are snipped off the sheet. If you touch your own strip or run off the edge of the board, you tear. Either way the level starts again.
Tips and strategy
- Small, safe bites. A short trip out and back is hard to catch. Big loops claim more land but leave a long strip out for rivals to cross.
- Bite into your rivals. A loop that closes around part of a rival's land takes it from them. Paper next to a rival is worth twice as much: you gain and they lose.
- Watch the rivals, not just your path. If a rival is heading for your strip, turn for home straight away. Your land is safe ground.
- Snip them back. Rivals are vulnerable in exactly the same way. If one has a long strip out, cross it to cut them off the sheet. All of their land goes blank, ready for you to take.
- Win the head-on bumps. If two tokens bump into each other, the one standing on its own land wins. If both are out in the open, the one with the longer strip tears.
- Do not cross your own line. When you turn for home, make a wide U-turn rather than a sharp one so you do not clip your own strip.
- Mind the edge. Leaving the board tears you just like your own strip does, so loop inwards near the edges.
- Mind the goal. The share you need is marked on the bar. Once you are close, play safe.
What's in it
A level-by-level game on a board 100 squares across. Level 1 has three rivals and a goal of 20 per cent. Each level after that adds another rival, makes them a little faster and smarter, and raises the goal by 5 per cent, up to nine rivals from level 7 and a 60 per cent goal from level 9. The rivals have paper names: Snip, Crease, Folda, Tabby, Glue, Origo, Pulp, Washi and Kami.
There are seven paper colours to play as. You start with one, and each level you clear unlocks another, up to all seven. Pick your colour by clicking a swatch on the menu or the result card. Each player's land has its own pattern, so rivals are easy to tell apart.
The board is one big sheet of graph paper on a kraft table, and each player's land is a cut sheet with grain, wobbly hand-cut edges and soft shadows. Sounds are paper rustles, snips and crumples, and a good cut throws paper confetti.
Behind the game
The sheet is a grid of squares, and each square belongs to nobody, to a player, or to someone's strip. When you get home, the game fills in from the edges of the board, and any square that can't be reached from an edge without crossing your paper is cut out as yours. That is why a loop takes everything inside it, rival land included.
The rivals think for themselves. A rival leaves home, runs out in a rough loop of three legs and heads back. It turns for home early if anyone comes close to it or its strip, or if its strip grows too long. The braver ones, on later levels, take bigger loops and go hunting for other players' strips when one is nearby. On the first few levels you are faster than every rival. By level 7 the rivals have caught up with you, so outrunning them stops working and timing matters more.
Rivals that are snipped come back after three seconds on a fresh patch somewhere else on the board. You do not, so when you lose the level starts over. The result card tells you who snipped you and the best share you reached.
Questions
Do I need an account?
No. Your level and paper colours are saved in your browser, and the game picks up at the level you reached.
Can I play on a phone?
Yes. Drag a finger in the direction you want to go. You do not have to keep your finger near the token; the direction of the drag is what counts.
Is it multiplayer?
No. Every rival on the sheet is played by the computer.
Why did I lose without anyone touching me?
You probably touched your own strip or ran off the edge of the board. Both tear you.
Is it violent?
No. Caught tokens are just snipped off the paper in a puff of confetti.
Does it flash?
No. Your land glows briefly when you cut out a new piece, and the view shakes a little on big cuts and snips.