How to play & controls Othello Online
GameNow Othello keeps the standard rules and scores games the way tournaments do. If a game stops with empty squares because neither side can move, those squares go to the winner, and a resignation, a loss on time or an opponent who never comes back is scored 64–0, whatever the board showed.
Online games run on a server clock borrowed from chess: five minutes each, five seconds back after every move, and no single move longer than 45 seconds. The clock of the player to move counts down to whichever deadline comes first, the same moment the server calls time.
Solo play is built for learning. The five AI levels differ in how far they read, how often they play a random legal move and when they start calculating the endgame exactly. Practice adds a move preview, Undo and a move review that marks corners, passes and conceded corners on a timeline. Today's board gives every signed-in player the same AI opponent for the day and ranks the final disc margin once the server has replayed the game.
Modes
Solo
Choose Beginner to Master and play Black against the AI on your own device, with no clock, Undo, and the move preview on by default. It is the only mode that works without an account.
Today's board
Signed-in players get one AI opponent per day, set to Easy, Normal or Hard by the date; the day turns over at midnight Korea time (15:00 UTC). Undo is off, and your best margin of the day is ranked, top 20 shown.
VS PLAYER
Two signed-in players meet through Find opponent, a 10-minute invite code or a Challenge; the match seed decides who plays Black. Both use the online clock, and the result screen leads back to the lobby.
Live matches
Running online games are listed in the lobby with how long they have been going. Watch opens one read-only, labelled Black and White instead of Me and Opponent, with no Resign button.
Practice from here
From the move review, or the result screen's 'Replay from the corner you gave up', you continue a past position as Black against the Normal AI. A line at the top compares your new line with the original by discs, corners and legal moves.
Controls
| Action | Mouse & keyboard | Touch | Gamepad |
|---|---|---|---|
| Place a disc | Click a dotted square | Tap a dotted square | Left stick moves the pointer, A taps |
| Preview first (Solo, Today's board) | Hover to preview, click to place | First tap previews, second tap places | Point to preview, A places |
| Board cursor | Arrow keys move the frame; Enter or Space places | — | D-pad moves the frame; Start or Y places |
| Preview on/off, Undo (Solo) | Click the button | Tap the button | Pointer + A |
| Resign | Resign, then confirm | Resign, then confirm | Pointer + A on both |
| Result screen | Enter: Play again (Solo) or Back to lobby (online); Esc: leave | Tap a button | Start = Enter, B = Esc |
| Move review | ← → step, Esc closes, click the timeline | Drag the timeline; Previous, Next and event buttons | D-pad ← →, B closes |
Strategy tips
The preview looks one move ahead
The corner warning only checks your opponent's replies right after your move; nothing deeper is searched. The detail line shows one thing, in this order: corner warning, 'Corner secured', reply count, so a corner move that also forces a pass is not shown as one.
Today's board answers the same way
The day's AI chooses from the date and the moves played so far, never from the time or your device. Play the same moves and it gives the same replies, so after a loss you can replay the line and change the move where it went wrong; only your best attempt is ranked.
Today's board ranks the margin
The score is your discs minus the AI's, with leftover empty squares added to the winner, so a 2-disc win and a 30-disc win rank far apart. Resigning records the lowest possible score, −64.
Read the online clock
The number beside the player to move is the real deadline: the smaller of the remaining bank and the 45-second limit. It turns red at 10 seconds and blinks while running. With no passes each side makes 30 moves, so increments add 2:30 in all, but no single move can use more than 45 seconds.
Hear how big a move was
Each move is followed by one rising note per flipped disc, up to eight, so you hear the size of the opponent's move before you look. Flipped discs turn in order of distance from the new disc, which traces each line, and a ring stays on the last move.
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