First published in Martin Gardner’s "Mathematical Recreations" column in Scientific American, he gave it the name "Gale" after its author. The game was published as a boxed game in the early 1960s under the name Bridg-It.
The players alternately connect two orthogonally adjacent dots of their own color with a bridge -- either a length of plastic or (if playing on paper) simply a line of their color. A line may not cross another line already played. The object is to connect the opposite edges of the board that are your color.