Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ends.

The earliest mention of dominoes is from Song dynasty China found in the text Former Events in Wulin by Zhou Mi (1232–1298).

European dominoes may have developed independently, or Italian missionaries in China may have brought the game to Europe.

Other popular forms include Texas 42, Chicken Foot, Concentration, Double Fives, and Mexican Train.

[5] European-style dominoes are traditionally made of bone, silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother of pearl), ivory, or a dark hardwood such as ebony, with contrasting black or white pips (inlaid or painted).

Alternatively, domino sets have been made from many different natural materials: stone (e.g., marble, granite or soapstone); other woods (e.g., ash, oak, redwood, and cedar); metals (e.g., brass or pewter); ceramic clay, or even frosted glass or crystal.

Modern commercial domino sets are usually made of synthetic materials, such as ABS or polystyrene plastics, or Bakelite and other phenolic resins; many sets approximate the look and feel of ivory while others use colored or even translucent plastics to achieve a more contemporary look.

Such sets are lightweight, compact, and inexpensive, and like cards are more susceptible to minor disturbances such as a sudden breeze.

The oldest written mention of domino tiles in China dates to the 13th century and comes from Hangzhou where pupai (gambling plaques or tiles) and dice are listed as items sold by peddlers during the reign of Emperor Xiaozong of Song (r.

Chinese sets also introduce duplicates of some throws and divide the tiles into two suits: military and civil.

European dominoes may have developed independently, or Italian missionaries in China may have brought the game to Europe.

[2]: 181  Having been established in Italy, the game of dominoes spread rapidly to Austria, southern Germany and France.

There are two earlier recorded meanings for the French word domino, one referring to the masquerades of the period, derived from the term for the hooded garment of a priest, the other referred to crude and brightly colored woodcuts on paper formerly popular among French peasants.

[12] From France, the game was introduced to England by the late 1700s,[a] purportedly brought in by French prisoners-of-war.

[19] In Muggins, the cribbage board was dropped, 5 spots scored 5 points, and game was now 200 for two players and 150 for three or four.

Despite the name, there was no 'muggins rule' as in cribbage to challenge a player who fails to declare his scoring combinations.

This confusion continues to the present day with some publications equating the names and others describing All Fives as a separate game.

Moreover, according to Michael Dummett, in the Chinese games it is only the identity of the tile that matters; there is no concept of matching.

[23] Instead, the basic set of 28 unique tiles contains seven additional pieces, six of them representing the values that result from throwing a single die with the other half of the tile left blank, and the seventh domino representing the blank-blank (0–0) combination.

[24] Some modern descriptions of All Fives are quite different from the original, having lost much of their cribbage character and incorporating a single spinner, making it identical, or closely related, to Sniff.

A domino usually features a line in the middle to divide it visually into two squares, called ends.

In the most common variant (double-six), the values range from six pips down to none or blank.

If that occurs, whoever caused the block receives all of the remaining player points not counting their own.

[30] A common variant of the blocking game that is played in the Middle East features four players with slightly altered rules.

Another variant of the blocking game is the Latin American version and is played in teams of two.

Bendomino uses curved tiles, so one side of the line of play (or both) may be blocked for geometrical reasons.

[34][35] In Muggins, players score by ensuring the total pip count of the open ends is a multiple of a certain number.

The game ends when one of the pair's total score exceeds a set number of points.

[37] A very simple example is a Concentration variant played with a double-six set; two tiles are considered to match if their total pip count is 12.

While a complete domino set has only 28 tiles, the Unicode set has "reversed" versions of the 21 tiles with different numbers on each end, a "back" image, and everything duplicated as horizontal and vertical orientations, for a total of 100 glyphs.