Five or Ten

1996 · strategy · Android · iOS · MS-DOS · Chuck Smith

What the Shell is a direct descendant of this 1996 DOS game. Even back in 1996, gameplay was simultaneous between both players. The board is 9x9 (a funny coincidence of the numpad 3x3 layout), five in a row has always been a way to win, and you play real people anywhere in the world instead of huddling around a keyboard due to hardware limitations of the late 90s. Three rules changed between this and What the Shell's release in 2014. I invite you to compare this with its current version on iPhone, iPad and Android! https://whattheshell.games This DOS game was abandoned in 1997. The design was not. Thousands of games have been played in 2026 alone, and the first open tournament in July 2026 drew in 39 players from around the world. ABOUT THE 1996 GAME Two players share one keyboard and place on the same grid at the same time. Five in a row wins, or ten captured pieces, thus the name. Simultaneous movement formed the foundation for this game. Every five-in-a-row game hands the first player an advantage, and the usual fix is a handicap rule bolted on afterward. Both players moving at the same time uniquely removes the problem instead of patching it. I wrote it as a teenager, in QBasic, compiled with Visual Basic 1.00 for DOS, and sold it as shareware by mail. 5OR10.TXT is the original manual, and it opens with why the game was written. The last DOS release, Five v1.10 (1997), is here: https://archive.org/details/five-v110-1997 RIGHTS Charles "Chuck" Smith is the author and rights holder. The author uploaded this himself. ABOUT THIS UPLOAD This is the original shareware, minimally redacted. 2026.TXT lists every file I touched; every other file keeps its original 1996 date. This copy ships unregistered, so you get the real shareware notice when you quit. REGISTER.BAT will register it, so you can also see how the paid version looked.