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Territory Draw is a free online draw-and-claim territory game with one rule that does all the work. Inside your own land you are safe and leave no mark; the moment you step outside, a trail follows you, and returning to your own colour converts every cell your loop enclosed. That includes holes you drew around and land a rival already held. Only two things can kill you — your own trail and the outer wall — because the rivals here grab land rather than hunt you: they treat every trail as an obstacle and steer around it, which makes cutting a trail something only you can do. Catch a rival mid-loop and its whole territory is released back to nobody. Four maps, from one timid neighbour up to four bold ones, and the share of the board you need grows with every level. No download, no account.
How to play Territory Draw
- You are the ringed dot. The block of colour around it is your land.
- Swipe in a direction, or use the arrow keys, to turn. You never stop moving.
- Inside your own land you are safe and leave no trail at all.
- Step outside and a trail follows you. That trail is the only thing that can kill you.
- Get back onto your own colour and the loop closes: every cell it enclosed becomes yours.
- A loop claims holes it drew around, and it claims land a rival already owned.
- Touching your own trail kills you. So does the outer wall.
- Crossing a rival’s trail kills the rival, and everything it owned is released back to nobody.
- The rivals will not chase you — they draw their own loops and steer around any trail they meet.
- Own the share of the board the level asks for to win it.
Tips
- Small bites, often. A short loop claims less but the trail is only exposed for a moment.
- Hug the edge of your own land. If your whole path stays next to your colour, home is always one move away and you can never box yourself in.
- The meter turns warm the instant you have a trail out. That is the only moment you are killable, so watch it rather than the map.
- Never turn back the way you came while drawing — that is your own trail directly behind you, and the game will refuse the turn rather than kill you for it.
- Loops that swallow a rival’s land are worth far more than loops over empty ground. Draw around a neighbour, not away from one.
- A rival mid-loop is a free kill and a free map. Watch for one that has pushed a long way out and cut across its line.
- When you own a big blob, walk to its edge before starting a loop. Setting off from deep inside wastes seconds going nowhere.
- Corners of the board are cheap to claim, because two sides of your loop are the wall itself.
- Finishing well past the target is three stars, so keep going once you cross the line if the map is quiet.
FAQ
Is Territory Draw free to play?
Yes. It runs in the browser with no download, no sign-up and nothing to buy. All four maps are included and unlock as you take them.
How does the game decide what is “inside” my loop?
By flooding the board inward from the outer edge through every cell you do not own, and keeping whatever the flood could not reach. That is the only honest way to answer it, and it is where a game like this goes wrong: run the flood the other way round and your first loop either claims the entire board or claims nothing. The tests check it against hand-built loops with known interiors, including a loop drawn around a hole, a loop enclosing a rival’s land, and a loop pressed against the border, which is the case that leaks if the algorithm is wrong.
Why do the rivals not chase me?
Because they are land-grabbers, not hunters, and that is a deliberate fairness rule. When rivals walked over the player’s trail, death arrived from a bot wandering into a line you could not watch on a forty-cell board — no strategy survived it, including the safest one available. Now every runner treats every trail as an obstacle and steers around it, so the only things that kill you are your own trail and the wall, both your own doing. Cutting a trail became something only you can do.
What happens when I cut a rival?
It dies and every cell it owned is released back to nobody, which turns a large neighbour into a large opportunity. You keep going untouched — crossing someone else’s trail is safe for you.
Can I get stuck inside my own territory?
You can wander in it, but there is always a way out, because your land is a solid region on a grid with an edge. It is worth walking to the edge of your blob before starting a loop, though: the reference solver the tests use had to learn exactly that. Without a rule to head for the frontier it reached about 15% of the board, pinned against the right-hand wall, and four more minutes of play changed nothing at all.
Is every map actually winnable?
Yes, and it is checked over ten different layouts per map rather than one. A reference land-grabber that hugs its own border wins every level on every seed without dying once, and a runner that never steers loses every level. The border-hugging matters: a solver that drew wide rectangles instead trapped itself against its own trail at every size tried, winning at best three runs in four on the easiest map and none at all on the hardest.
Does the same map play out the same way twice?
Replaying a level gives you the same starting layout and rival headings, so you can try a different opening on ground you have already read. The rivals themselves make their own choices from there, so it is the same map rather than the same game.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. The board is square so the portrait frame suits it, and a swipe in any direction turns you. A long drag keeps turning you as it goes, because the swipe is measured from wherever your finger last committed rather than from where it first touched.