Paper Fleet Duel Has Become FlickFleet — Now on the App Store

Paper Fleet Duel began with a game I remember playing using nothing more than an A4 sheet of paper and a biro. We drew a line through the middle of the page, placed dots on each side to represent ships, and took turns making a pen flick toward the opposing fleet.

A single dot was a small ship. Two nearby dots made a larger ship, and four dots formed the battleship. If the ink line crossed a dot, the ship was hit. Cross every dot belonging to a ship and it was sunk. The aim was to sink the opposing fleet before your own disappeared under a web of hand-drawn attack lines.

What changed on the way to release

The original prototype grew considerably during testing. The underlying flick mechanic stayed simple, but the surrounding game became much more polished: fleets move and turn like boats, the interface adapts to the current situation, progression is saved locally, AI opponents remain intentionally beatable, and the game now has enough structure to support repeated matches rather than a single novelty round.

Recreating the biro flick on a touchscreen

In FlickFleet, the player places a finger on their own half of the paper and flicks toward the opponent. The starting position affects the power of the attack: the farther the finger begins from the centre line, the more force the shot receives.

Once the push begins, the direction is locked from the first instant of movement. The player cannot steer the line after launch. It travels across the paper, and any ship dots it crosses are damaged. That small restriction is what preserves the risk, imperfection and satisfaction of the original pen flick.

Ships that behave like boats

Each ship has a defined front. A small chevron sits ahead of the leading dot to show the bow. Movement follows that heading, so ships travel forward rather than sliding sideways or instantly reversing.

Small craft can turn more sharply. Two-dot ships have a smaller steering limit, and the four-dot battleship changes direction only gradually. A ship may stay anchored during a turn, while another begins moving during an attack. The result is still visually simple—dots, lines and paper—but there is now a genuine positional layer underneath it.

Progression without losing the original game

1. Learn the flick: early play uses smaller fleets so the attack mechanic is easy to understand.
2. Earn points and credits: hits, sinks and wins feed progression.
3. Build the fleet: additional ships and later-game options expand the tactical choices.
4. Keep progressing: names, progress, credits, fleet choices and high scores are stored locally.

An AI captain that is allowed to miss

The opponent uses lightweight offline game logic rather than a large language model. It evaluates the board and selects a plausible flick, but controlled aiming error prevents the computer from feeling unnaturally perfect. Easier captains make wider mistakes, while higher difficulties become more focused without turning every turn into a guaranteed hit.

From prototype tests to a released iPhone game

Before the App Store release, the project went through multiple internal iterations. One of the later development milestones was tracked as v4.7.0 build 28, with the adaptive HUD and other refinements in place. The project also accumulated 73 XCTest methods covering important behaviour and regression checks.

The name changed; the idea did not

Paper Fleet Duel remains the development-project name used throughout the design history and on these Know & Guide pages. FlickFleet is the public App Store name. They are the same game and the same experiment: take a tiny pen-and-paper memory and see how far it can be developed without polishing away the thing that made it fun in the first place.

Download, support and privacy

FlickFleet is available from Apple now. The Know & Guide support and privacy pages remain the home for release information, troubleshooting and issue reporting.