When a domino falls to the floor, it carries a little bit of energy with it. When that energy is released, it can be used to move another domino or even a whole game of dominoes.

Dominoes can be made from a variety of materials including wood, glass, ceramic clay and metal. They are often quite heavy and can be very expensive, but they can also be very elegant and artistic in appearance.

Traditionally, European-style dominoes are crafted from bone, silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (MOP), ivory, or a dark hardwood such as ebony with contrasting black or white pips. Many other materials have been used to make dominoes as well, including marble, granite and soapstone; metals such as brass and pewter; ceramic clay and frosted glass or crystal.

Some dominoes are etched with numbers and other symbols. This allows the player to choose which number they want to play when the domino is sunk into the ground. It can also allow the player to add a new number or symbol to their domino chain.

There are several different types of games played with dominoes, most notably the Block game for two players and the Draw game, which is similar to the Block game except that players take less dominoes at the start of the game. In the Block game, players alternately extend their line of dominoes with a matching tile at one end and pass their turn when they cannot do so.

The Block game is often played in pubs and social clubs in Britain where it is called “5s-and-3s”. The goal of each end of the game is to attach a domino from your hand to the corresponding end of the dominoes already played so that the sum of all the tiles can be divided by five or three, resulting in a score.

A common rule for a set of dominoes is that each of the ends has a limited number of pips, so that a tile can only be matched with a matching tile from a different end of the set. This limit can be increased by introducing additional ends or increasing the number of tiles in a set.

In the West, most games of dominoes use a standard or “double-six” set that consists of 28 tiles. However, there are also a large number of other games that can be played with a variety of domino sets.

Some of these games can be as simple as a straight line of dominoes with no special rules. These can be a lot of fun to play, and are often a popular game in pubs.

Others are more complex and require specific skills to play. The most common are the “double-six” game and the “draw” game, which is a variation on the standard game.

The earliest manual for playing the game of dominoes in China is believed to be the Xuan He Pai Pu, written by Qu You (1341-1437). It is considered a forgery by some Chinese scholars because it was not written in the proper language and may be an earlier version of a more sophisticated game.