On Sunday afternoon my entire family sat in my sister’s living room, fingers jabbing at our iPhones, as we yelled a series of numbers aloud: “124!†“217!†“Oh, I just got to 400!â€Â We were playing Dots, the highly addictive free game from Betaworks. (I won, with 474 points.)
It turns out we were not the only group engaged in competitive Dots playing last weekend. Paul Murphy, senior vice president for product at Betaworks, said that since the app made its debut in early May, more than three million people have downloaded the game and have collectively played 250 million games.
To play Dots, you simply connect the same colored dots together on a screen by drawing your finger to create a line that can be placed through dots. The more dots you connect, the higher the score.
On Thursday, the company announced an updated version of the game that allows people to play one another in a more competitive setting.
“When we released the game, we saw a lot of people playing on the subway, passing their phones back and forth, comparing scores,†the makers of the game wrote in a company blog post. “Now each player has the same set of dots, so it’s truly a battle of skill.â€
The update also includes an official version that can be played on an iPad. The updated app also includes a two additional color modes, to accommodate color-blind players who had trouble with the first version of the game.
Now if you will excuse me, I have to go and try to beat my high score of 474 dots.
