Whirligig Drop1. Cut a strip of paper as long as your hand and three fingers wide. Cut down the middle from one end to halfway. Fold one of the two flaps toward you and the other away, to make blades. Fold the bottom edge up twice for weight.2. Each player makes one.3. Stand side by side, hold the whirligigs up at arm's length and let go on a count of three.4. The last to land wins. Trim the blades or change the folds, and race again.Youngest player: age 6. Players: 1 to 6. You need: plain paper and scissors.
Four in a Row on Squared PaperMark off a box of squares and take turns putting an X or an O in any empty one. The first line of four, across, down or diagonally, wins. Step-by-step rules are on our list of games to play in class. Youngest player: age 6. Players: 2. You need: squared paper and a pencil.
Cut-Up Sentences1. Each player writes a sentence of exactly eight words along a strip of paper.2. Tear the strip between the words, shuffle the eight pieces and pass the pile to the left.3. On go, everyone rebuilds the sentence they were handed.4. The first player to read out a sentence that its writer accepts wins the round. If the words make sense in two different orders, either one counts.Youngest player: age 7. Players: 3 or more. You need: plain paper and a pencil each.
Black Path1. Draw a grid of six by six squares, and draw a short line into the middle of one side of a corner square. That is where the path begins. 2. On your turn, fill the square the path has just reached with one of three patterns: a plus sign, or two curves that each cut off opposite corners, bending one way or the other. 3. The path runs on through your square into the next. It may pass back through a filled square along the line that has not been used. 4. The player whose square sends the path into the edge of the grid loses. Youngest player: age 8. Players: 2. You need: squared paper and a pencil.
Blind Maze1. Each player draws two grids of six by six squares. On the first, in secret, draw a maze: thicken up to fifteen of the grid lines into walls, and mark a start square and a finish square with a way through between them. 2. Tell the other player only where your start and finish are. They mark them on their blank grid. 3. On your turn, call a step: up, down, left or right. The maze maker answers "clear" or "wall". After "clear", move and call again. After "wall", draw the wall on your grid and the turn passes. 4. The first explorer to reach the finish wins. Youngest player: age 8. Players: 2. You need: squared paper, a pencil and a book to hide your maze behind.
Bridges Across the Dots1. Draw five rows of six red dots. Then draw six rows of five blue dots in the gaps, so that every blue dot sits in the middle of four red ones, with one extra blue row above and one below. 2. On your turn, join two dots of your own color that are side by side or one above the other. No line may cross a line. 3. Red is building a chain from the left side to the right. Blue is building one from top to bottom. 4. The first unbroken chain wins. A draw is impossible in this game. Youngest player: age 8. Players: 2. You need: plain paper and two pens of different colors.
Show all 50 games (47 more)
Grid battles for two, continued
Brussels Sprouts1. Draw two crosses, well apart. Each cross has four free ends. 2. On your turn, join two free ends with a curve that crosses nothing. Then draw a short stroke across the middle of your curve, which makes two new free ends, one on each side. 3. The player who cannot join two free ends loses. 4. The secret is that a game with two crosses always lasts eight moves, whatever anyone does, so the second player always wins. With three crosses it lasts thirteen and the first player wins. Try it on someone who does not know. Youngest player: age 8. Players: 2. You need: plain paper and a pencil.
Dots: Surround and Capture1. On squared paper, mark off a box of twelve by twelve squares. Each player uses a different color. 2. Take turns placing one dot on any empty crossing of the grid lines. 3. When your dots make a closed ring around one or more enemy dots, with each dot of the ring next to the following one along a line or a diagonal, draw the ring. Each enemy dot inside scores a point, and nothing more is played inside. 4. Play until the box is full. The most captured dots wins. Youngest player: age 8. Players: 2. You need: squared paper and two pens of different colors.
Four Corners of a Square1. On squared paper, mark off a box of seven by seven squares. One player is X and the other is O. 2. Take turns putting your mark on any empty crossing of the grid lines. 3. You are trying to get four of your marks onto the four corners of a square whose sides run along the grid lines. The square can be any size. 4. The first player to do it wins. For a harder game, squares that sit on a slant count as well. Youngest player: age 7. Players: 2. You need: squared paper and a pencil.
Hackenbush1. Draw a ground line across the bottom of the page. On it, draw a picture made of straight strokes, such as a house, a tree or a stick figure. Every stroke must be joined to the ground, directly or through other strokes. 2. On your turn, cross out any one stroke. 3. Any strokes that are no longer joined to the ground fall, so cross those out too. 4. The player who finds nothing left to cross out loses. Youngest player: age 7. Players: 2. You need: plain paper and a pencil.
Pentomino Duel1. Draw a grid of eight by eight squares. Beside it, draw the twelve pentominoes: every shape that can be made of five squares joined edge to edge. 2. On your turn, shade one pentomino on the grid, turned or flipped any way you like, without overlapping a shaded square. 3. Cross that shape off the list. Each of the twelve may be used once. 4. The last player able to place a shape wins. Youngest player: age 8. Players: 2 to 3. You need: squared paper and a pencil.
Snake Duel1. On squared paper, mark off a box of eight by eight squares. Each player puts a start dot on a corner of the box, at opposite corners. 2. On your turn, draw your line one step longer, along a grid line to the next crossing. 3. No line may touch a crossing that any line has already used, your own included. 4. The player who has no step left to take loses. Youngest player: age 6. Players: 2. You need: squared paper and two pens of different colors.
Tac Tix1. Draw sixteen circles in a square, four rows of four. 2. On your turn, cross out one circle, or several that lie next to each other in the same row or the same column with no gap between them. 3. Keep taking turns until every circle is gone. 4. In this version, the player who has to cross out the last circle loses. Youngest player: age 7. Players: 2. You need: plain paper and a pencil.
Tic-Tac-Toe on Four Boards1. Draw four grids of four by four squares in a row. They are the four floors of one tower. 2. Take turns marking one square on any floor. 3. Four of your marks in a line win. The line can lie on one floor, across, down or diagonally. It can run straight up through the same square on all four floors. Or it can climb on a slant, one floor at a step. 4. There are 76 winning lines in all, so check the slanting ones before every move. Youngest player: age 8. Players: 2. You need: plain paper and a pencil.
Number and code games 8
Bulls and Cows1. Each player writes a secret number of four digits, all different, and hides it. 2. Take turns guessing the other player's number. A guess also has four different digits. 3. The answer comes in bulls and cows. A bull is a right digit in the right place, and a cow is a right digit in the wrong place. If the secret is 4271 and the guess is 1234, the answer is one bull and two cows. 4. Write every guess and its answer in a column. The first to name the other's number wins. Youngest player: age 8. Players: 2. You need: plain paper and a pencil each.
Corner the Queen1. Draw a grid of ten by ten squares. The first player writes a Q in any square of the top row or the right-hand column. 2. Take turns moving the queen any number of squares to the left, straight down, or diagonally down and to the left. Mark her new square and cross out the old one. 3. She never moves up or to the right. 4. Whoever moves the queen into the bottom left corner wins. Youngest player: age 7. Players: 2. You need: squared paper and a pencil.
Factors and Multiples Chain1. Write the numbers from 1 to 40 in rows. 2. The first player crosses out any even number. 3. After that, each player must cross out a number that divides exactly into the last one crossed out, or that the last one divides into. After 12, that could be 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 24 or 36. 4. The player who cannot find a number to cross out loses. Be careful with 1: after it, the other player may choose anything. Youngest player: age 9. Players: 2. You need: plain paper and a pencil.
Nim Drawn as Strokes1. The heap game nim, drawn in pencil. Draw four rows of short strokes: one stroke, then three, then five, then seven. 2. On your turn, cross out as many strokes as you like, as long as they are all in the same row. 3. You must cross out at least one. 4. The player who has to cross out the last stroke loses. Youngest player: age 7. Players: 2. You need: plain paper and a pencil.
Pigpen Cipher Race1. Draw two tic-tac-toe grids and two large X shapes. Put a dot in every space of the second grid and the second X. That makes 26 spaces. Both players write the alphabet into them in the same order. 2. To write a letter in cipher, draw the lines that surround its space, with the dot if it has one. 3. Each player writes a secret sentence of five words in cipher. 4. Swap sheets. The first to read the other's sentence aloud wins. Youngest player: age 8. Players: 2 to 6. You need: plain paper and a pencil each.
Product Four in a Row1. Draw a grid of six by six squares and write these 36 numbers in it, in order: 1 to 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 32, 35, 36, 40, 42, 45, 48, 49, 54, 56, 63, 64, 72, 81. Under it, write the digits 1 to 9 in a row. 2. Each player puts a coin on a digit in turn, and they may share one. The second player multiplies the two digits and rings that product in the grid. 3. From then on, move one coin to a new digit on your turn and ring the new product in your color. 4. Four of your rings in a line win. Youngest player: age 8. Players: 2. You need: plain paper, two coins and two pens of different colors.
Subtract a Square1. Draw a row of thirteen strokes. 2. On your turn, cross out a square number of strokes, such as 1, 4 or 9. 3. The player who crosses out the last stroke wins. 4. From thirteen, the first player can always win, but only by starting with one stroke. Work out why, then start from nineteen strokes and find a winning first move for yourself. Youngest player: age 9. Players: 2. You need: plain paper and a pencil.
Tax Collector1. Write the numbers from 1 to 20. 2. On your turn, ring a number in your color. It is yours. The other player then rings, in their color, every number not yet ringed that divides exactly into it. 3. You may only choose a number that still has at least one such divisor free for the other player to take. 4. When no number can be chosen, stop. Each player adds up their rings, and the higher total wins. Youngest player: age 9. Players: 2. You need: plain paper and two pens of different colors.
Paper games for three or more 8
Categories on a Five-Letter Word1. The word game categories, played on a grid. Everyone draws a grid of five columns and five rows. Agree a five-letter word and write one letter above each column. Agree five categories, such as an animal, a food and a place, and write one beside each row. 2. Set a timer. Fill each square with a word of that row's category that starts with that column's letter. 3. Read the answers out, square by square. 4. An answer nobody else wrote scores two points, and a shared one scores one. Youngest player: age 8. Players: 3 or more. You need: plain paper, a pencil each and a timer.
Cut-Up Sentences1. Each player writes a sentence of exactly eight words along a strip of paper. 2. Tear the strip between the words, shuffle the eight pieces and pass the pile to the left. 3. On go, everyone rebuilds the sentence they were handed. 4. The first player to read out a sentence that its writer accepts wins the round. If the words make sense in two different orders, either one counts. Youngest player: age 7. Players: 3 or more. You need: plain paper and a pencil each.
Draw the Map From Memory1. Agree on a place that everyone at the table knows: your street, your school or your town. 2. Each player has three minutes to draw a map of it from memory and label five things on it. Nobody looks at a phone or out of the window. 3. Lay the maps side by side. 4. Go around the table. Each player points to one thing on someone else's map that is in the wrong place, and the table decides who is right. Youngest player: age 7. Players: 3 or more. You need: plain paper, a pencil each and a timer.
Exactly One Match1. One player reads out a prompt, such as "something round", "a word that rhymes with day" or "a number from one to ten". 2. Everyone secretly writes one answer on a slip. 3. Turn the slips over together. You score a point only if exactly one other player wrote the same answer as you. Three players with the same answer score nothing. 4. The player to the left reads the next prompt. Play to five points. Youngest player: age 7. Players: 3 or more. You need: plain paper and a pencil each.
The Folded-Paper Story in Five Lines1. The old parlour game of consequences, cut to five lines for a table of mixed ages. Everyone writes a name or a creature at the top of a sheet, folds the top over to hide it and passes the sheet to the left. 2. On the sheet you receive, write "met" and a second creature. Fold and pass. 3. Do the same for where they met, what they did there, and what happened in the end. 4. Unfold the sheets and read the five-line stories aloud. Youngest player: age 7. Players: 3 or more. You need: plain paper and a pencil each.
Letter Square Word Hunt1. Everyone draws a grid of four by four squares. 2. Going around the table, players call out one letter at a time. Each player writes it in any empty square of their own grid. Stop at sixteen letters. 3. Set a timer. List every word you can trace in your own grid by stepping from a square to one that touches it, corners included, without using a square twice in a word. 4. A neighbor checks your list. Score one point for each letter of every word of three letters or more. Youngest player: age 8. Players: 3 or more. You need: plain paper, a pencil each and a timer.
MASH1. Write MASH across the top of a sheet for mansion, apartment, shack and house. Under it, write four headings: job, pet, town and way to get around. Your friends give three choices for each, one of them silly. 2. A friend draws a spiral until you say stop. Draw a line from its middle to its edge and count the rings the line crosses. 3. Count through every choice on the sheet, the four letters included, and cross out the one you land on each time, skipping what is crossed out. 4. When one choice is left under each heading, read out your future. Youngest player: age 7. Players: 2 to 6. You need: plain paper and a pencil.
Telegram From Ten Called Letters1. Everyone draws ten short blanks across a sheet. 2. Going around the table, players call out one letter each until there are ten. Everyone writes them on the blanks in the order called. 3. Each player now writes a message of ten words, each starting with the next letter. It has to make some kind of sense. 4. Read the telegrams aloud and vote for the best. Nobody may vote for their own. Youngest player: age 8. Players: 3 or more. You need: plain paper and a pencil each.
Fold-and-flick games to play with paper 8
Flip the Folded Tile1. Each player folds a tile for the Korean game ddakji. One way is to fold two sheets into long strips, lay them across each other as a plus, fold the four ends over the middle one after the other, and tuck the last end under the first. 2. Play rock, paper, scissors. The loser lays their tile flat on the floor. 3. The other player throws their own tile down onto it, hard and flat, trying to make it flip over. 4. A flipped tile scores a point for the thrower. Then swap who lays a tile down. Play to five. Youngest player: age 6. Players: 2 to 4. You need: plain paper, two sheets of thick paper for each player and a hard floor.
Fold a Cup, Catch the Ball1. Fold a square of paper corner to corner into a triangle, with the long edge at the bottom. Fold the left point across to the right-hand edge so that its top edge lies level. Fold the right point across to the left in the same way. 2. Fold the two loose points at the top down, one to the front and one to the back. Open the pocket: it is a cup. 3. Scrunch a scrap of paper into a ball. A partner tosses it from three steps away, and you catch it in the cup. 4. After each catch, both players take one step back. Count your longest run. Youngest player: age 6. Players: 2. You need: plain paper.
Fold-and-Rub Tank Battle1. Fold a sheet in half and open it again. With a soft pencil, each player draws five small tanks on their own half. 2. On your turn, draw one heavy dot on your own half as a shot. 3. Fold the sheet shut along the crease and rub hard on the back of the paper over the dot, so that the dot prints a faint mark on the other half. 4. Open the sheet. If the mark is on an enemy tank, cross that tank out. The first to knock out all five wins. Youngest player: age 7. Players: 2. You need: plain paper and a soft pencil each.
Fortune Teller That Picks the Next Game1. Fold the four corners of a square of paper to its center. Turn it over and fold the four new corners to the center again. 2. Fold it in half both ways to loosen it, then slide a thumb and a finger of each hand under the four outside flaps and push the points together. 3. Write a color on each outside flap and a number on each of the eight inside triangles. Under each triangle, write the name of a paper game. 4. A friend picks a color, and you open and close once for each letter. They pick a number, and you open and close that many times. They pick again, and you lift that flap and play what is under it. Youngest player: age 6. Players: 2 to 6. You need: plain paper and a pencil.
Paper Football1. The table game with a folded triangle. Fold a sheet into a long strip, fold the strip over and over into a small thick triangle, and tuck in the end. This is the ball. Sit at opposite ends of a table. 2. Take turns sliding the ball across the table with one push of a finger. 3. A ball that stops hanging over the other player's edge without falling is a touchdown. Agree what it is worth. 4. After a touchdown, flick the ball through the goalposts the other player makes with two thumbs and two raised fingers, for one more point. Youngest player: age 7. Players: 2. You need: plain paper and a table.
Paper Sumo on a Box Lid1. Each player folds a wrestler: a small rectangle of paper folded in half so that it stands up like a tent, with a face drawn on it. Draw a ring on an upturned shoebox lid. 2. Stand the two wrestlers in the ring, face to face. 3. Both players drum on the lid with their fingertips, each at their own edge. The shaking walks the wrestlers around. 4. A wrestler that falls over or leaves the ring loses the bout. Best of five. Youngest player: age 5. Players: 2. You need: plain paper, a shoebox lid and a pencil.
Pen-Flick Battle1. Draw a line across the middle of a sheet. On your own half, each player draws five small ships, each the size of a fingernail. 2. On your turn, stand a pen on its point on one of your own ships. Hold the top with one fingertip and press down and outward so that the pen skids and leaves a line. 3. A line that passes through an enemy ship sinks it. Cross that ship out. 4. The first player to sink all five wins. Youngest player: age 7. Players: 2. You need: plain paper and a ballpoint pen each.
Whirligig Drop1. Cut a strip of paper as long as your hand and three fingers wide. Cut down the middle from one end to halfway. Fold one of the two flaps toward you and the other away, to make blades. Fold the bottom edge up twice for weight. 2. Each player makes one. 3. Stand side by side, hold the whirligigs up at arm's length and let go on a count of three. 4. The last to land wins. Trim the blades or change the folds, and race again. Youngest player: age 6. Players: 1 to 6. You need: plain paper and scissors.
Paper games for one 8
Eight Queens on a Board You Draw1. Draw a grid of eight by eight squares. 2. Mark eight squares with a Q so that no two queens share a row, a column or a diagonal. 3. Warm up on a smaller board first, with four queens on four by four and then six on six by six. 4. The big board has 92 answers. When you have found one, look for a second that is not just the first one turned around. Youngest player: age 9. Players: 1. You need: squared paper, a pencil and an eraser.
Join Five1. Draw a plus-shaped grid of dots: a square of four by four dots, with a block of four by three dots added to each of its sides. 2. Draw a straight line that passes through exactly five dots in a row. Four of them must already be there. You add the fifth yourself, at an end or in the middle. 3. No part of a new line may run along a line you have already drawn. 4. Number each line as you draw it. When no line is possible, that number is your score. Try to beat it. Youngest player: age 9. Players: 1. You need: squared paper and a pencil.
Life by Hand1. On squared paper, shade a few squares that touch. Every square has eight neighbors, counting the diagonal ones. 2. Draw the next generation on a fresh patch of grid. A shaded square stays shaded if two or three of its neighbors are shaded. An empty square becomes shaded if exactly three of its neighbors are. Every other square is empty. 3. Start with three in a row: it flips between a row and a column forever. 4. An L of three squares turns into a block of four and stays that way. Now try four in a row. Youngest player: age 9. Players: 1. You need: squared paper and a pencil.
Look and Say1. Write the number 1 at the top of a page. 2. Each new line says aloud what the line above looks like. The line 1 is "one 1", so write 11. The line 11 is "two 1s", so write 21. Next comes 1211, then 111221, then 312211. 3. Carry on for ten lines without a slip. 4. Then check your work. However far you go, no digit other than 1, 2 or 3 ever turns up. If you find a 4, there is a mistake above it. Youngest player: age 8. Players: 1. You need: plain paper and a pencil.
One Line, No Lifting: Which Shapes Work?1. Draw a square with both of its diagonals and a pointed roof on top. Now try to draw the same house again in one line, without lifting the pen or going over a line twice. 2. Count the lines that meet at each corner. A shape can only be drawn in one line if no corner has an odd count, or exactly two do. 3. The house has two odd corners, the bottom two, so start at one of them and you will finish at the other. 4. A square with its diagonals and no roof has four odd corners and cannot be done. Invent three shapes of each kind for a friend. Youngest player: age 8. Players: 1. You need: plain paper and a pencil.
Spirolaterals1. On squared paper, start at a crossing. Draw a line one square long, and turn right. Draw two squares, and turn right. Draw three squares, and turn right. 2. Repeat the same three lines, 1, 2, 3, again and again. After four rounds you are back where you began, and the shape is closed. 3. Now try 1, 2, 3, 4. It never closes. It walks off the page. 4. Test other lists of numbers, and color the ones that close. Youngest player: age 8. Players: 1. You need: squared paper, a pencil and colored pens.
The Turning Ant1. On squared paper, draw a small arrow in a square near the middle of the page. This is the ant, and the arrow shows which way it faces. All squares start white. 2. If the ant stands on a white square, it turns right, you shade that square, and it steps forward one square. 3. If it stands on a shaded square, it turns left, you rub the shading out, and it steps forward. 4. Count the steps as you go. See how far you get before you lose track, and look at the pattern the ant has left. Youngest player: age 9. Players: 1. You need: squared paper, a pencil and an eraser.
Twelve Pentominoes in One Rectangle1. Draw the twelve pentominoes, the shapes made of five squares joined edge to edge, and cut them out of squared paper. 2. Draw a rectangle of six by ten squares. That is sixty squares, exactly enough for all twelve. 3. Fit every piece inside with no gaps and no overlaps. Pieces may be turned over. 4. There are 2,339 ways to do it, and finding the first one is harder than that sounds. Youngest player: age 9. Players: 1. You need: squared paper, a pencil and scissors.
Seven classics, in one line each 7
Dots and BoxesDraw a grid of dots and take turns joining two neighbors with a line. Whoever draws the fourth side of a box writes an initial in it and goes again, and the most boxes wins. Step-by-step rules are on our list of games to play in class. Youngest player: age 6. Players: 2 to 4. You need: plain paper and a pencil.
Four in a Row on Squared PaperMark off a box of squares and take turns putting an X or an O in any empty one. The first line of four, across, down or diagonally, wins. Step-by-step rules are on our list of games to play in class. Youngest player: age 6. Players: 2. You need: squared paper and a pencil.
Hangman Without the GallowsOne player thinks of a word and draws a dash for each letter. The other guesses letters, and every wrong guess costs one part of a small drawing. Name the word before the drawing is used up. Step-by-step rules are on our list of games to play in class. Youngest player: age 6. Players: 2 to 4. You need: plain paper and a pencil.
Sea BattleEach player hides a fleet on a lettered and numbered grid, then the two take turns calling squares to find and sink the other's ships. Step-by-step rules are on our list of games to play in class. Youngest player: age 7. Players: 2. You need: squared paper and a pencil each.
SOSDraw a grid of squares and take turns writing an S or an O in any empty one. Each time you complete S-O-S in a straight line you score and go again. Step-by-step rules are on our list of games to play in class. Youngest player: age 6. Players: 2 to 4. You need: plain paper and a pencil.
SproutsStart with a few spots. On your turn, draw a line from spot to spot that crosses nothing, and add a new spot on it. A spot can take three lines at most, and the last player able to move wins. Step-by-step rules are on our list of games to play in class. Youngest player: age 7. Players: 2. You need: plain paper and a pencil.
Write It, Draw It, Pass ItEveryone writes a sentence and passes it on. The next player draws it and folds the words away, the next writes what the drawing shows, and so on around the table. The rules are on our list of drawing games to play. Youngest player: age 7. Players: 4 or more. You need: plain paper and a pencil each.
How this list was compiled: Our list of games for a pen and a sheet of paper, written for this site. The wording is ours, and the youngest ages and player counts are our estimates. Games with our own descriptive names are our own versions and claim no history. Named games, their rules and the number facts were checked on 2026-10-09 against English Wikipedia (text under CC BY-SA 4.0), at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ followed by the name: Shannon_switching_game, Dots_(paper-and-pencil_game), Pentomino, 3D_tic-tac-toe, Black_Path_Game, Sprouts_(game), Hackenbush, TacTix, Bulls_and_cows, Nim, Subtract_a_square, Pigpen_cipher, Wythoff's_game, Consequences_(game), Categories_(game), MASH_(game), Paper_football, Paper_fortune_teller, Ddakji, Join_five, Eight_queens_puzzle, Eulerian_path, Langton's_ant, Conway's_Game_of_Life, Spirolateral, Look-and-say_sequence, Dots_and_boxes, SOS_(paper-and-pencil_game), Battleship_(game), Hangman_(game). The life, spirolateral and one-line examples were also worked through from those rules. Licence: own work
How it works
These games to play on paper need a pen, a sheet and sometimes a second color. Most open with what to draw first.
Read the full guide
What to draw first
Squared paper helps with Grid battles for two, but a ruler and plain paper will do. Two colors of pen matter more: in Dots: Surround and Capture and Bridges Across the Dots, each player needs their own.
Games to play with paper itself
Some games here use the sheet as the toy. Under Fold-and-flick games to play with paper you fold a football, a cup, a wrestler or a tile to flip, and the paper takes the knocks.
Questions and answers
What games can I play on paper?
Past tic-tac-toe, dots and boxes and hangman, try Bulls and Cows, a code-breaking duel with four-digit numbers, or Hackenbush, where you draw a picture and take turns crossing out its lines. Seven classics, in one line each covers the well-known ones.
What paper games can I play by myself?
Paper games for one runs from Join Five, where you extend a cross of dots line by line, to Look and Say, a number pattern in which every line describes the line above it.
What paper games work for three or more players?
Exactly One Match and Cut-Up Sentences take a slip each and any number of players. MASH and The Folded-Paper Story in Five Lines suit a table of friends who want to laugh more than win.
Which paper games are good for two people?
Most of the list. Snake Duel and Tac Tix are quick to learn. Bridges Across the Dots and Pentomino Duel reward thinking a few moves ahead, and neither can end in a draw.