A tense racing abstract for four or five players.
A rarity among abstract games is something that's easy to pick up and play when you have more players around. Blockers! the recent re-edition of the game Uptown by Gryphon Games fits bill perfectly.
In the game, players try to lay their tiles into the fewest connected groups. Each player has an identical set of tiles, and each tile can be laid in either one column, one row, or one of the 9 sudoku divisions of the board, depending on the symbol on the tile. Players have a limited ability to capture tiles, but this counts directly against them in scoring, so the game is rarely very aggressive.
A good lunch-time sized abstract game for four players.
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Sunday, May 8, 2011
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Review: Portobello Market
If you're slow, you'll never catch the market
Portobello Road, despite looking like a light family game, is a short sharp game of maneuvering your market stalls into the prime positions along the lane-ways with the most valuable customers. The extreme shortage of market stalls and the fact that unfinished lanes are mostly not scored makes the game both tense and short.
Portobello Market is very nifty with 2, plays well with three when there's a little more consideration of which player is safer to give some points to.
read full review...
Portobello Road, despite looking like a light family game, is a short sharp game of maneuvering your market stalls into the prime positions along the lane-ways with the most valuable customers. The extreme shortage of market stalls and the fact that unfinished lanes are mostly not scored makes the game both tense and short.
Portobello Market is very nifty with 2, plays well with three when there's a little more consideration of which player is safer to give some points to.
read full review...
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Review: Gardens of the Alhambra
The trees have it
Queen have taken advantage of the success of their Alhambra franchise to re-release one of their classic abstract game Carat as The Gardens of the Alhambra. This simple tile-laying game is a struggle for area control where every move you make, helps another player and where the only way to get the big points is to ensure you are only the barest fraction ahead.
This battle is fought over garden tiles as players reconstruct the orchards, groves and pathways of the famous Alhambra of Granada.
read full review...
Queen have taken advantage of the success of their Alhambra franchise to re-release one of their classic abstract game Carat as The Gardens of the Alhambra. This simple tile-laying game is a struggle for area control where every move you make, helps another player and where the only way to get the big points is to ensure you are only the barest fraction ahead.
This battle is fought over garden tiles as players reconstruct the orchards, groves and pathways of the famous Alhambra of Granada.
read full review...
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Review: Six
Pieces of six! Pieces of six!
There are many abstract games in which players create a row of pieces to win. Six is, at most, a distant cousin to these games who lives in a much better part of town. In Six, players place pieces trying to create one of the three possible winning formations (including a line) while playing for position in two different phases of play forcing them to walk a delicate balance of attacking and defence.
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There are many abstract games in which players create a row of pieces to win. Six is, at most, a distant cousin to these games who lives in a much better part of town. In Six, players place pieces trying to create one of the three possible winning formations (including a line) while playing for position in two different phases of play forcing them to walk a delicate balance of attacking and defence.
Read full article...
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Review: Mord im Arosa
Eight floors, one guess. A novel murder mystery
In Mord im Arosa, the players take the roles of amateur detectives attempting to investigate (or at least doing their best to make sure that one of the other players is arrested for the two murders that have been discovered tonight at the Hotel Arosa.
In this light abstract crime game for 2-6 players, sharp ears are the key to making sure someone else takes the fall.
Read full article...
In Mord im Arosa, the players take the roles of amateur detectives attempting to investigate (or at least doing their best to make sure that one of the other players is arrested for the two murders that have been discovered tonight at the Hotel Arosa.
In this light abstract crime game for 2-6 players, sharp ears are the key to making sure someone else takes the fall.
Read full article...
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Review: Linja
Hop, skip and win!
Linja is one of the older abstract games from Steffen Spiele. First published in 2003, it's an abstract efficiency race game somewhat reminiscent of a diceless backgammon in which two players attempt to race their pieces towards their home space, taking advantage of other pieces in the way to make big leap-frogging moves.
Review: Rat Hot
Stacks of Rats
Rat Hot is the Queen small-box release of Michael Schacht's Dschunke: Das Legenspiel, an abstract tile game that was developed from the goods-tile-laying element of Dschunke. In the game, players stack 3 by 1 tiles with crates on them to create large connected areas of goods in their own colour while trying to avoid (or cover up) rats.
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