Pipfold: the manual
How the game is operated — and what it cannot do. You need to have read none of this to play: just start.
| What you are after | Where it is |
|---|---|
| The rules, with a round played through | Rules |
| Flaps 1–10 and 1–12, plus and minus, house rules | Variants |
| Two, three or four players, tournament | Two to four players |
Controls
| On a device | On a computer | |
|---|---|---|
| Roll | tap the dice | Space |
| Choose a flap | tap the flap | Number keys |
| Shut them | tap the dice again | Enter |
| Undo | top left | Z |
| Hint | top left | H |
| New round | top left | N |
| Full screen | top left | F |
| Menu | the outermost one | Esc |
The hint shows one possible move but does not play it — otherwise it would not be help, it would be the answer.
Full screen pushes the address bar and bookmarks out of the picture, in the browser as on the desktop; a second press or Esc brings them back. On the iPhone the symbol is absent — Safari gives pages no full screen there. If you want it edge to edge anyway, add Pipfold via Share → Add to Home Screen; the installed version starts without the browser bar.
Common questions
| Does it really cost nothing? | Yes. No purchase, no subscription, no ads, nothing to unlock. There is no „full version“ either. |
| Do I need an account? | No. There is none — not even as an option. |
| Do I need an internet connection? | Once, to load it — about 14 MB. After that it runs offline; the Android build has no network permission at all. |
| What is Shut the Box? | An old dice game: nine flaps, two dice, shut whatever adds up to the pips. A public-domain tradition; a box like this stands in many pubs. |
| Where is my progress stored? | On your device. In the browser in local storage, in the installed builds with the app. We never see it. |
| Can I play against someone? | Up to four on the same device, optionally as a tournament. Not over the network — there is no server for it. |
| Is it for children? | It adds up to twelve and works well from school age. We make things specifically for children too: kistli.com. |
| Is the game itself in English? | Yes. The language sits in the start menu under „Settings“, and the game speaks more languages than this website does. Opening it from this page starts it in English. |
What Pipfold cannot do
- No progress across devices. What is on the phone is not on the computer. There is no account — so there is nothing to sync either.
- In the browser, progress belongs to the browser. Clear the site data and you lose statistics and settings. On Android and on the desktop both live in the app.
- If you used to play on pipfold.mana.how, your progress is at pipfold.mana.how/spielen/. Browsers tie stored data to the address it was saved under; it cannot be carried over from there.
- On iPhone only as a home-screen icon. There is no App Store app, and none has been submitted.
- The macOS build is not notarised. The first start needs right-click → Open.
- The source is not public yet. The licence is settled (AGPL-3.0), the repository is only now being opened. If you want it sooner, write to us.
Verifying the Android package
The Android build ships without network permission — technically it cannot send anything at all. Verifiable: the package carries our own signing key, SHA-256 of the certificate5c6eaac0 0423c7b9 b1df6cfe 447483c7 252bae44 6a3a3591 568ec85d 9b71c391— if it does not match, it is not our package. With themana storeyou also get signature checking and automatic updates.
Where it comes from
Shut the Box stands in pubs and reportedly stood on fishing boats in Normandy. The rules belong to nobody — there is nothing to license and nothing to invent. So the only work left was what such adaptations usually get wrong: make the box look and sound like a box, and leave out everything that puts itself in front of it.
The name: pip is the spot on a die, fold is the tipping of the flap — and a fold is also a pen, the place where the pips are kept. Until July 2026 the game was called „Klappenspiel“; the German name did not travel.
Technically a Godot 4.7 game with a procedural wood shader and its own dice mesh. The source is under the AGPL-3.0 and the web build sits on our own server. Built by mana in Tägerwilen — a Swiss non-profit association in formation that makes software belonging to the people who use it. The association’s other games are atgames.mana.how.
And what do you live on, if nothing costs anything?
Membership fees, donations and commissioned work — not on you and not on your data. That is why there is nothing to buy here, nothing to unlock and no measurement inside the game: there would be nobody to sell the numbers to. If you want things like this to keep existing you cansupport the association — but you do not have to, and you will not be asked here.