Nine tiles · Two dice · No mercy
Just Shut the Box
Shut the Box, the classic pub dice game, in eight modes. Play offline, solo or against clever bots.
The game
Shut the Box has been played in British pubs and around family tables for over two hundred years. It is also known as Canoga, Batten Down the Hatches, Blitz, Klackers or Jackpot.
Just Shut the Box is a clean, fast, offline version of the traditional wooden board game: no account, no sign-up, no waiting for opponents.
How to play
Nine numbered tiles stand open. Roll two dice and shut any combination of tiles that adds up to your roll: a 9 can close the 9, or 6+3, or 4+3+2. That choice is the whole strategy. Keep rolling until nothing fits. Tiles left standing count against you, the lowest score wins, and closing every tile shuts the box for a perfect zero.
Once your open tiles total 6 or less, you may roll a single die: the classic one-die rule. You can turn it off in Settings if your house plays it straight.
Eight ways to play
- Classic: nine tiles, two dice, lowest score wins.
- Knockout: scores add up turn after turn; reach 45 and you are out. On your own, see how many turns you can last.
- Down and Up: you shut the box, then a bot takes your board and raises the tiles back up. Then you swap.
- Digits: the tiles you leave read as one number, so 1, 4 and 9 score 149.
- Second Wind: a double that fits nothing lets you reopen a tile and roll on.
- Three Dice: roll three, use any two.
- Ten Tiles and Twelve Tiles: bigger boxes, with a third die to hand on the twelve.
- Every mode keeps its own record, and How to play in the app explains each one.
Play your way
- Solo: chase your best score over 1, 3 or 5 turns.
- Against the computer: 1 to 3 computer opponents, each on Easy, Normal or Hard. In Classic, Hard plays the mathematically perfect move every time.
- A guided first turn teaches the rules.
- Show best move, an optional hint, marks the strongest tiles and your chance of shutting the box.
- Put your own name on the scoreboard, and rematch in one tap.
Features
- Plays offline: no Wi-Fi, no mobile data, no sign-in.
- Detailed statistics for every mode, kept on your device: games played and won per difficulty, win rate, best solo scores at every length, turn averages and boxes shut.
- Sound, vibration and bot speed are yours to set in Settings.
Free to play
Three free games every day, in any mode. After that, watch one short ad for one more game, or remove ads with a one-time purchase and the daily limit is gone for good. No banner ads and no ads between turns.
Privacy and your data
No account and no sign-up. Your scores, settings and player name stay on your device, and the app sends nothing to us. Ads come from Google AdMob, and you only see one when you choose to watch it. Until you remove ads, Google's ad software in the app collects some data, such as your advertising ID and an approximate location.
The Privacy Policy explains what data Just Shut the Box handles and why.
Support
Questions, problems and ideas are welcome: email appsbyabyteofeverything@gmail.com, or use Help & feedback in the app's Settings.
Part of the Just series
Just Shut the Box is one of the Just series of dice games for Android by A byte of Everything. The other games in the series: