How to play
Chomp is played on a 4 × 7 bar of chocolate. The top-left square is poisoned (it is green and marked with a skull). Players take turns.
On your turn, tap any square of chocolate. You eat that square and every square to its right and below it, in one bite. The bar gets smaller from the bottom-right corner inward.
The poisoned square can never be chosen. When it is the only square left, the player whose turn it is has nothing else to eat, and loses. In other words, the player who eats the last sweet square wins.
The first player moves first; against the computer you are the first player. Hint shows a winning bite when one exists, and Undo takes back one move against a friend, or your move together with the computer’s answer. Choose Friend at the top to play two people on one device.
Strategy
- The first player can always win. A famous argument proves it without saying how: if biting only the bottom-right square were a losing move, the second player would have a winning reply, but the first player could have made that reply directly. So a winning first move exists. For the 4 × 7 bar the computer knows it exactly.
- Think in staircases. After each bite the remaining bar is a staircase: every row is at most as long as the row above. Learn the small losing shapes and aim to hand them to your opponent.
- Two equal rows lose for the player to move. With two rows of the same length (and nothing else), the opponent mirrors you until you are stuck with the poison. The same holds for an L shape with equal arms.
- One row is easy. A single row of sweet squares next to the poison: take everything but the poison and you win. So never leave a single row for your opponent.
- Use Hint to learn. The hard computer never slips. Play it, watch which shapes it leaves you, and copy them against a friend.
If you enjoy Chomp, try Dominoes or Dots and Boxes next.
