Games like Battleship: hidden-information games worth playing

My favourite thing about Battleship is that you can't see the other board.

You're guessing the whole time, but even a miss narrows things down a bit. People who study games call this hidden information. Each player knows something the other doesn't, and most of the game is working it out.

If that's the part you like too, a few other games are built on it. Below are three I'd point you to. After those comes BattleTabs, which I make, so I'm biased about that one.

Hasbro's Battleship, the official one

If you want the game you remember from the box, the closest thing on a computer is Hasbro's BATTLESHIP on Steam, made by Marmalade Game Studio. It's a paid game, and its store page says you can play your friends online.

Hasbro's BATTLESHIP by Marmalade Game Studio. Screenshot from its Steam page.

Classic mode is the board game as you know it. The bit I find more interesting is Commanders mode. The store page describes six commanders who each have their own abilities. One calls an airstrike that hits a whole row or column. Another fires a torpedo that travels along a line until it finds a target.

The grids in that mode are smaller and come in odd shapes, so the usual habits for where to put your ships don't carry over neatly.

Stratego

Stratego is what I'd suggest to anyone who likes Battleship and wishes the pieces moved.

Going by Wikipedia's description, it's for two players on a 10×10 board, with 40 pieces each. The ranks are printed on one side only. You can see where your opponent's pieces are, but you can't see what they are.

Stratego Online by Wanted 5 Games. Screenshot from its Steam page.

You win by capturing the other side's Flag, and the fun is in the bluffing. A piece that never moves might be the Flag. It might also be one of the six Bombs, which destroy anything that attacks them except a Miner. And the Spy, which loses every other fight, beats the top-ranked Marshal if it gets to attack first.

It's a different kind of guessing from Battleship. You know exactly where to aim, you just don't know what's waiting there.

It's an old one. Wikipedia says it's been in production in Europe since World War II and in the United States since 1961. The same page notes that in 2022 DeepMind announced DeepNash, an AI that plays Stratego at the level of a human expert, and that the hidden pieces are a big part of why the game was hard for a computer.

To play online there's Stratego Online from Wanted 5 Games. Its store page lists ranked matches against other people, bots to practise against, and a campaign with 15 scenarios.

Sea Battle 2

On a phone, the one I'd look at is Sea Battle 2 by Byril. It's free on the App Store.

Sea Battle 2 by Byril. Screenshot from its App Store page.

The whole game is drawn like something in a school notebook, blue pen on squared paper. I like that a lot, because that's where Battleship came from. Its Wikipedia page describes it as a pencil and paper game dating from World War I, long before anyone made a plastic board.

The App Store page lists planes, submarines, mines and radar on top of the usual ships. You can play strangers online, invite a friend, or play over Bluetooth. Two people can also share one phone and take turns.

And if you'd rather skip the app, two sheets of squared paper still work fine. My Battleship strategy post on where to put your ships applies either way.

BattleTabs

This one's mine, so take it with a pinch of salt.

BattleTabs is a turn-based sea battle for two players. You each place four ships on a board the other person can't see, then take turns attacking. First to sink the other fleet wins.

Picking four ships for a fleet in BattleTabs.

The difference from Battleship is that ships have special abilities on a cooldown. So on your turn you're deciding where to aim, and also which ability is worth spending now and which to save. Our how to play page puts it better than I can: choosing four ships whose abilities work together is most of the strategy.

Aiming the Sailboat's ability, which hits three squares in a row.

It's free. On desktop it runs in the browser with nothing to install. On a phone you get it from the App Store or Google Play, and it's free-to-play on Steam too.

If you want to try it against someone you know, I listed it with a few other two-player games you can play with a friend.

I'd love you to give BattleTabs a go. And if you only have time for one of the others, I'd pick Stratego.