Mancala · Dots and Boxes · Battleships · Kakuro · Pipes · Lights Out · Peg Solitaire · Word Scramble
Board games, puzzles and a word game, all built in-house and open in a single tap.
Mancala, Dots and Boxes and Battleships for two, then Kakuro, Pipes, Lights Out, Peg Solitaire and Word Scramble for one. RankedAus wrote every one of them and runs them on its own servers, so there is no download, no account and nothing to spend. Each card shows players, round length, difficulty and rating, which keeps the choosing short.
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- 0downloads or sign-ups
- 1tap to begin
All games are free to play for entertainment only. No real money, no prizes, no purchases.
Where to start
For a five-minute gap
Lights Out
A grid of lit squares and a handful of taps to clear it. Even the 7×7 board fits inside a short break.
For settling inMancala
Seeds, pits and a slow build of pressure. Take on the computer at any of three levels, or hand the other side of the board to a mate.
For a small screenWord Scramble
Jumbled letters, a timer and one tap per letter. It was laid out for a phone held upright.
For starting coldDots and Boxes
Join two dots, close a box, go again. The whole rulebook fits in one sentence.
The games
Twelve cards, eight of them live today
Board and strategy games come first: Mancala, Dots and Boxes and Battleships, with Go and Xiangqi on their way. Puzzles and word games follow: Kakuro, Pipes, Lights Out, Peg Solitaire and Word Scramble, then Cryptogram and Pentomino, which are still being built. Every card wears the same four badges, so narrowing the list down takes a moment.
12 of 12 games shown
Nothing matches that name. Try a different spelling, or clear the box.
Dots and Boxes
Take turns drawing one edge at a time. Close the fourth side of a box and it is yours, along with another go. Computer or friend.
- 1–2 players
- 5–10 min
- Easy
Battleships
Lay your fleet out on the grid, then call shots until you have found and sunk every ship the computer hid, before it finds yours.
- 1–2 players
- 10–15 min
- Easy
Lights Out
Every tap flips a light and its four neighbours. Switch the whole grid off, from 5×5 up to 7×7.
- Single-player
- 2–5 min
- Medium
Peg Solitaire
Jump one peg over another into an empty hole and lift out the one you passed. Finish with a single peg standing. Three board shapes.
- Single-player
- 5–10 min
- Hard
Word Scramble
Letters land in a heap and the clock starts. Rebuild the word, then the next one, for as long as the timer allows.
- Single-player
- 3–6 min
- Easy
Go
Black and white stones on a 19×19 board, with territory decided by the space you surround. Being built now.
- 1–2 players
- 30–60 min
- Hard
Xiangqi
The classic Chinese board game: generals kept inside their palaces, cannons that capture by leaping, and a river across the middle.
- 1–2 players
- 20–40 min
- Hard
Cryptogram
A short quotation with every letter swapped for another. Work out the substitution and the sentence appears.
- Single-player
- 5–15 min
- Medium
Pentomino
Twelve five-square pieces and one rectangle to fill, with no gaps and no overlaps.
- Single-player
- 10–20 min
- Medium
Getting started
Three short steps from list to board
It is barely a procedure, but the question arrives often enough that we have set it out.
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Read the cards
Players, round length, difficulty and rating sit on every card. A couple of spare minutes suggests Lights Out or Pipes; a quarter of an hour suggests Mancala or Battleships; a slow evening suggests the larger Kakuro grids.
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Hit play
The game opens on RankedAus itself, in the tab you already have in front of you. No app store, no plugin, no download and no form asking who you are.
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Play, leave, return
Nothing on the site follows you once you close it. Your browser may remember an unfinished grid, but that stays on your device. Come back whenever another round appeals.
Our criteria
A short list stays useful only while someone looks after it
RankedAus works from one belief: a game earns its card by being understood in a minute and worth returning to for years. Board games lead the list, puzzles and word games follow, and not one of them asks for a tutorial, a login or any setting up before the opening move.
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Known shapes first
Mancala has been played for centuries, Dots and Boxes for well over one, and the puzzles follow rules you can hold in your head. There is nothing to study before the first turn.
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Written here, run here
Every game is our own code, served from our own servers. A game that would need an install, an account or a particular device never makes the list.
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Always open
Each game starts on the first tap with nothing to unlock and nothing to spend. You will not be asked to register either.
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One yardstick for all
Players, round length, difficulty and rating are judged the same way on each card, so putting two games next to each other is a fair exercise.
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Revisited from time to time
Now and then we play through the whole list ourselves. A game that no longer matches its card is fixed or taken down.
Questions
Questions people send us
Mostly about playing the board games against the computer, about where the puzzles come from, and about what a browser needs.
Do I need an account or a subscription?
No. Every game on RankedAus opens as it is, with nothing to sign up for and nothing to spend. Tap a card and you are playing.
What falls under puzzles and word games?
The single-player half of the list. Kakuro, Pipes, Lights Out and Peg Solitaire are the puzzles, Word Scramble is the word game, and Cryptogram and Pentomino are still being built. Each is played alone and runs in the browser like the rest.
Can I play the board games against the computer?
Yes. Mancala, Dots and Boxes and Battleships each include a computer opponent, and Mancala lets you choose between three strengths. Mancala and Dots and Boxes also let two people share one screen and take turns.
Where do the puzzles come from?
They are generated on your device each time you start one. Kakuro grids, Pipes layouts, Lights Out patterns and Word Scramble words are built fresh and checked for a solution before you see them, so the supply does not run out.
Who gives each game its rating?
From people who play here. Once a round ends, anyone can leave a rating; the star is the average and the short note next to it is what players mention most.
Which browsers are supported?
A recent Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Edge handles all of them. The games are plain web pages with a bit of script, so there is nothing to add to your browser.
Do they work on a phone?
Yes. Every game resizes for a small screen and responds to touch. Lights Out, Word Scramble and Pipes are particularly comfortable under a thumb.
Who built the games?
We did. Every game on RankedAus is our own code, hosted on our own servers, which is why one privacy policy and one set of terms cover the lot.
Get in touch
Spotted something off, or got a game in mind?
If a card says something that is no longer true, or you know a classic that would suit this list, send us a line.