A territory control game that runs in your browser

Inktide is a free territory control game you play in a browser tab: take land, hold your border on a map shared by up to twenty players, and own the most ground when five minutes are up.

Play now Free, in this tab. The button puts you in the next public match.

The map is the scoreboard

There are no points to add up. Every tile belongs to one player or to nobody, each player's land is drawn in their own colour, and the ranking is the map itself. When the clock stops, whoever holds the most tiles wins; the survivors are ranked behind them by the size of their countries, and the eliminated by how long they held on. A match can also end early: when one player holds 60 per cent of the land, when only one player is left, or when every player still standing belongs to one alliance.

Land pays for more land

Your army is what pushes your border forward, and land is what feeds it. Every tile you hold raises the most soldiers you can have, and an army below that limit refills by itself. The loop is short: take ground, grow, take more. Empty land is by far the cheapest ground on the map, a rival's land costs several times as much, and hills cost extra to climb, so the opening is a scramble for open country rather than a war.

Everybody moves at once

Nothing here waits for a turn. The server runs each match at ten ticks a second and every player's orders play out at the same time, so a front is moving while you decide what to do about it. You point an attack at a tile and set how much of your army goes with a dial, from five per cent to all of it. Committing your whole army throws everything at the border in front of you and strips every other one, and the leaderboard shows every player's land and army, so your neighbours can see the gap as clearly as you can.

Terrain, water and buildings

The ground is lowland, highland, rivers and sea. A front can wade across a narrow strait; wider water needs a transport, which makes an island a strong position but never a safe one. Coins arrive separately from soldiers and pay for the buildings: a City, a Port, a Factory and a Mine. The strategy guide has the exact numbers, and how to play walks through the controls.

Alliances that can end at any moment

Any player in the match can be asked into an alliance, and either of you can end it on the spot, with no warning to the other. An allied border lets you look away from one front, and the moment the alliance ends, that is the front you were not watching. Bots never accept an alliance, and the end-of-match table marks every bot.

Decided by the players

A territory game is only worth playing if decisions settle it. Nothing on sale makes an army bigger, a tile cheaper or a building quicker, and the rules are the same for every seat. The map is abstract on purpose: it has coastlines and high ground, and you will not find a country's name, a national border or a flag anywhere on it. The only border that matters is the one you draw.

Play now Free, in this tab. The button puts you in the next public match.