About Sea Search
Sea Search is a hide-and-seek game for two, in the spirit of the old pencil-and-paper game of hidden ships. Each player buries three treasures in a five by five sea. Then the hunt begins.
How a match works
The game opens with the hiding. Player one taps three squares while player two looks away, then presses "Done hiding". A screen appears asking for the device to be passed across, so nothing can be seen as it changes hands. Player two then hides three treasures in the same way.
After that the players take turns to search. On your turn you see your opponent's sea, with every square you have already tried marked. Tap a new one. If treasure is there, it is revealed and you search again. If not, the square is marked as empty and the turn passes.
The first player to find all three wins. Player one searches first.
The honour system
This is a game played on one screen, so it depends on both players looking away when asked. The handover screen helps, but a determined cheat could peek. Agree before you start that nobody does.
How to win
When hiding, avoid patterns. Three in a row, three corners, or the same squares as last time are the first things an opponent tries. People also tend to avoid the centre and the edges and hide treasure in the ring between. Knowing that, do something else.
Spread your treasures out, or do not. A tight cluster is risky, since one find leads a thoughtful searcher to check the neighbours. But a player expecting a spread may never look there.
When searching, think about the person. Where would they put it? Did they tap quickly in one area while hiding?
Use what you learn from repeated matches. Most people have habits.
With twenty-five squares and three targets, luck matters, which keeps it friendly. Among two-player HTML5 games it is one of the easiest to explain.