Filler is now on VOG

A board of coloured cells where a move is a choice of colour. A match on one board with swapped corners, six rated variants from Quick 8×7 to Vinco with 1377 hexagons, five bots, the Flood the board puzzle, a daily board and 100 puzzles.

There is a new game in the club — Filler. A board of coloured cells, two players in opposite corners, and every move is a choice of colour: your area is repainted in it and takes all neighbouring cells of that colour. Whoever has the larger area at the end wins.

The game has Russian roots. It was invented by Dmitry Pashkov: it came out for MS-DOS from Gamos in 1990, in the West it is known as "7 Colors", and in 1996 Alexander Vikulin made a Windows version with a board of hexagons. Today it is played in GamePigeon. In the club Filler gets what it always lacked: a rating, strong bots, a game archive and a fair match.

The rules in a minute

A move is choosing a colour. You may not take your current colour or your opponent's; a move that captures nothing is allowed, and sometimes it is the best move: you occupy a colour your opponent needs.
A free region your opponent can no longer reach becomes yours at once.
A decided game is not played out: it ends as soon as someone crosses the equator — holds more than half of the board.

The scoreboard shows each player's cells, their lead over the opponent and how far they are from the equator.

A match on one board

The colouring is random, and a convenient corner can decide a game. So the rated variants are played as a match of two games on the very same board: in the second game the players swap corners and the first move. At 1–1 the player with more cells over both games wins. Rating is counted for the match.

Variants

Six variants have their own rating:

Quick 8×7 — six colours, a match in a few minutes, as in GamePigeon;
Classic 15×15 — seven colours and room for a plan;
Hexagons 13×11 — each cell has six neighbours, the border is longer and more twisted;
Vinco — 1377 hexagons laid like bricks, the board of Alexander Vikulin's Windows version, a long game;
Four players — one in each corner, a match of four games;
Pairs — two against two, partners in opposite corners.

Unrated, for variety: diamonds as in the original "7 Colors", a big 21×21 board, a board with obstacles and walls, valuable cells and paints, three starts per player, and a practice room.

Bots

In the rooms with bots you will meet Varya, Gleb, Tonya, Fedya and Lyova — five levels from beginner to strongest. The levels were tuned by games of the bots against each other: each next one is noticeably stronger. If you always take the colour that captures the most, you will beat the first two — after that you will need to calculate.

Flood the board and the daily board

Besides the two-player game, the club has a one-player puzzle — Flood the board: flood the whole board with one colour from the bottom-left corner in as few moves as possible. Sizes from 8×8 to 18×18, and every board has the bot's result to compare yourself with. You can play without signing in or registering.

Every day there is a new daily board: one 14×14 board for everyone. Only the first attempt goes into the daily table; places are by number of moves.

Puzzles and strategy

In Courses there is the course "Filler: puzzles" — 100 positions from real games: win in one, two and three moves, and defence. Every solution is checked by exhaustive search. Courses are open after you sign in.

The strategy topics explain why the greedy move is not always the best, how to deny your opponent a colour, how to cut off a region, how to play a match on one board and how to play against the bots. The full rules are in Rules, and played matches are in the archive.

Come and play!