Description

Slots'n Dots is contains 48 plastic chips (six each of the numbers 1 through 7, portrayed with different numbers of dots, plus three each of single-ring and double-ring chips). It is played on a special plastic board which contains seven recessed areas that allow a chip to be placed face-up and six slots that hold a chip invisibly. The board is arranged with a single recess at the center surrounded by an alternating pattern of recesses and slots.

There are several different ways to play: a basic game, two levels of advanced play, a children's version, and a variety of optional rules. All follow the same basic theme: after the board is set up with chips in some or all of the recesses and slots, players take turns drawing a chip for the center recess and looking for patterns of chips (generally lines or triangles) containing runs of consecutive numbers. When a player spots a pattern on his or her turn, he or she takes one of the non-central chips from the pattern and moves the chip from the center of the board into the vacated spot. If the player cannot find a pattern, the center chip is instead taken off the board as a "dead chip" that can be played later in place of a random draw. Single-ring chips are wild, and double-ring chips allow other chips to be stolen from opponents. The game ends when the chip supply is exhausted and no more dead chips can be played -- at this point, players add up the values of the chips they collected and subtract any dead chips to determine to winner.

In the more advanced variations of the rules, legal patterns and playable areas of the board change so that slots are used more and more, adding a stronger element of memory to the game.