The History of Dominoes
Small tiles with pips, known in China for many centuries and in Europe since the 18th century - though how the two traditions are connected is still an open question.
Chinese Dominoes
Dominoes are documented in China long before they appear anywhere else; written references are usually dated to around the 13th century. Chinese sets are closely tied to dice: their 21 basic tiles show every result of throwing two dice, and they have no blank halves.
They were used for a whole family of games, many of them closer to card games than to the matching game played here.
Arrival in Europe
In Europe, dominoes turn up in Italy in the 18th century and soon became fashionable in France, from where they spread across the continent and to Britain. The European set is different from the Chinese one: it includes blanks, has no duplicated tiles, and the double-six set of 28 tiles became the standard.
Whether European dominoes were copied from Chinese ones, or invented again independently, is not known - no document shows how the idea could have travelled.
A Name With an Unclear Origin
The word "domino" is itself a puzzle. A popular explanation links it to the black hooded cloak with a white mask worn at masquerades, which was also called a domino, but this has never been proven.
This Version
Of the many games played with dominoes, PaperGames implements the simple draw game: match the ends, draw when you're stuck, and whoever goes out first wins. A blocked round is decided by the lowest pip total, and each game is a single round.