Paper Territory

Paper Territory is a territory-grabbing arcade game played out on a sheet of graph paper. You begin as a small square sitting inside a block of paper you already own. Steer out across the blank grid and a coloured trail follows behind you; steer back into your own block and everything your loop encircled is flooded with your colour. Rival squares are doing exactly the same thing on the same sheet.

All of the tension sits in that trail. While you are outside your own ground you are exposed — touching your own line, or driving off the edge of the paper, ends the run on the spot, and a rival who reaches your line first cuts you down. Bigger loops claim far more paper but leave you out there longer, so every excursion is a wager on how much you can enclose before something crosses your path. Drive over a rival's trail and it is they who go out.

The campaign runs to 200 levels. The first asks for a modest share of the arena against two placid rivals; later levels push the requirement up to 55 per cent and field as many as ten squares that actively dive at your line. Endless mode removes the target altogether: a wider arena, rivals that keep respawning, and the largest share you ever held as your score. A level runs a minute or two.

How to play Paper Territory

You steer a square around a paper grid, and the area you own only grows when a trail you draw outside it makes it safely home.

1. Swipe in any of the four directions to set your heading. Your square never stops, so steering is the whole of the control scheme.
2. You can turn mid-drag — the new heading commits as soon as the swipe clears the threshold. Arrow keys do the same job on a desktop keyboard.
3. Leave your coloured area and a trail begins drawing behind you. Sweep out a wide arc across the blank paper.
4. Steer back into any part of the ground you already own to close the loop. The enclosed paper fills in and your claimed percentage jumps.
5. Never cross your own trail and never leave the sheet — either one is instantly fatal while you are outside your territory.
6. Run over a rival's trail to knock that rival out. Crossing ground they have already claimed is perfectly safe.
7. Reach the claim target shown at the top of the screen to finish the level.

Tips and strategy

• Claim in fat rectangles rather than thin slivers. The flood fill takes everything inside the loop, so enclosed area grows with the square of how far you travel while the danger only grows with time spent outside.
• Your first turn out of territory shapes the entire loop. Running along an edge of the sheet means nothing can come at you from that side.
• You cannot reverse straight back down your own heading, so plan turns a step early — a panicked about-face is simply ignored and you keep going.
• A rival closing on your line is an opportunity as much as a threat: reach their trail first and they are eliminated, and they have to be outside their own ground to come after you.
• When the target is nearly met, cut one small safe loop instead of attempting another grand sweep. Five per cent that lands beats twenty-five that never gets home.

Features

• A 200-level campaign with claim targets rising from 30 to 55 per cent of the arena
• Rival count and aggression both scale up — two idle patrollers early on, as many as ten trail-hunters late
• Endless mode on a larger arena with no target, respawning rivals and your peak claimed percentage as the score
• Flood-fill claiming that takes any shape you can enclose, not just rectangles
• Seeded level generation, so a given level number lays out identically everywhere
• Best claimed percentage and campaign position both saved in the browser
• An eased opening level with passive rivals and a low target, so the first loop teaches rather than kills
• Swipe steering on touch, arrow keys on a desktop keyboard, and offline play after the first load

Frequently asked questions

How do I actually claim ground?

Only a closed loop counts. Leave your territory, draw a trail across blank paper, then re-enter your own ground anywhere — the game fills in everything the trail enclosed. A trail that never gets home claims nothing at all.

Why did I die when nothing touched me?

Almost certainly your own trail. Once you are outside your territory the line behind you kills you too, so any loop that crosses itself is fatal. Driving off the edge of the sheet has the same result.

Are the rival squares dangerous?

Their trails cut you down if they reach your line first, and the reverse is equally true — run over their trail and they are the ones eliminated. Ground they have already claimed is harmless to cross.

What is different about Endless mode?

There is no claim target and therefore no way to win: the arena is larger, knocked-out rivals are replaced after a few seconds, and your score is the highest share of the map you held before you finally died.

Does the game remember where I got to?

Yes. Your furthest campaign level and your best claimed percentage are written to the browser's local storage, so the menu offers to resume where you stopped.