Shut the Box

Shut the Box is a famous traditional pub game. It is played in different variants and no organization is known targeting standardization of rule variants for the game. Thus if playing Shut the Box with others you should first try to find agreement and commitment on rules. If in doubt I recommend to prefer and apply the locally played rules.

The Shut the Box application is intended to be less restrictive. Such that no specific rules are really forced to be applied. At any time you can take back an action like open a just closed flap and perform a different choice. If in need you can use a single die or two dice, roll again, switch to the menu and look up any rule variants in between game play.

Gaming Material

The box consists of a set of flaps being open at the beginning of the game. Flaps indicate their represented value by labels showing numbers. The box is shut as soon as all flaps are closed. This Shut the Box game uses flaps ranged from value one to nine.

Most Shut the Box variants are played with two six-sided dice.

Objective

Objective is to minimize the own penalty score. The player with lowest penalty score wins.
Each player keeps rolling dice and scoring these iteratively until…

either the total value of dice can not be used to close remaining open flaps. Then the next player continues with all flaps opened up again.
or finally all flaps are closed. The player shutting the box this way wins immediately.

Penalty Score

The penalty score is the total of all remaining open flaps' values summed up. As long as no player manages to shut the box completely the remaining open flaps indicate the players penalty score.

Recommended Variant

Player rolls the dice and adds up the shown total value.
Any combination of remaining open flaps can now be closed. Their values summed up have to match the total value of the roll exactly.
As soon as flaps 7, 8, and 9 are closed the player may decide on each roll to roll a single die or alternatively both dice.

More Variants

Avoid High Sums

You may decide to use the amount of open flaps as a score rather then the total sum of their values.
Lower amount of open flaps wins.

More Restrictive Single Die

The player may decide on each roll to roll a single die or alternatively both dice only in case that the overall sum of values for remaining open flaps equals 6 or less.

Two Dice Only

Player must always use two dice.
Thus a player has to end the turn in case there is only flap #1 remaining unless no other rule is applied.

Exact Match

Player rolls the dice and adds up the shown total value.
Just open flaps with the exact value of a die or the flap matching the sum can now be closed. The player is not allowed to use any other combination of remaining open flaps even if the sum does match.
Player may only continue if all dice rolled are scored.

Score Single Die is Enough

Player rolls the dice and adds up the shown total value.
Just open flaps with the exact value of a die or the flap matching the sum can now be closed. The player is not allowed to use any other combination of remaining open flaps even if the sum does match.
Player may continue as long as at least one die of a roll can be scored.
On mutual agreement it might be mandatory or optional to score a second die if possible. Meaning although a second die could be scored the player may decide freely not to score it if scoring second die is optional.

Thai Style

Player must exactly and can only score a single flap per roll.
Player rolls the dice and adds up the shown total value.
Just open flaps with the exact value of a die or the flap matching the sum can now be closed. The player is not allowed to use any other combination of remaining open flaps even if the sum does match.

Multiple Fixed Rounds

The game continues for a defined amount of rounds to be played.
Penalty scores are summed up per player.

Defined Maximum Penalty

The game continues in rounds to be played.
Penalty scores are summed up per player.
Player continues as long as his overall penalty does not exceed a previously agreed maximum penalty score, e.g. maximum penalty score 45.
Last man standing wins.

Flap Numbers are Penalty Digits

Remaining flap numbers represent penalty digits ordered from low to high. Sample: if flap #2, #5, and number #7 remain open then the penalty score is 257.

Legal

Oliver Merkel, Slieve League (Gaeilge: Sliabh Liag) at the One Man's Path, Contae Dhún na nGall, Éire, cc-by-nc-nd 4.0.

All source code also including code parts written in HMTL, Javascript, CSS is under MIT License.

The MIT License (MIT)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

If not otherwise stated all graphics (independent of its format) are licensed under

Images are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Shut the Box Principles and Concepts

The basic ruleset of Shut the Box is in the public domain due to its age and unknown authorship. It is claimed to be a traditional Irish Pub game. None the less please mind that certain variants are covered by legal rights concerning trademarks, game designs and possibly authorship on an exact ruleset for commerical versions.

Third Party Code Licenses

This Shut the Box implementation uses unmodified independent code libraries provided by third parties. Since their licenses might vary the corresponding information is externally linked below. Thus these external links will enable you to reproduce any copyright notice, any related list of conditions, disclaimers, and especially the copyright holders and authors of the corresponding third party functionality.

jQuery: MIT

jQuery UI: MIT