Blokus – The Abstract Board Game Surprised Us

We had our first game night at Infusion Tea, in College Park, in Orlando. There were three of us, plus a guy we hope will come back as a fellow gamer. He saw our sign on the door and thought he would see what we were doing.

So, it was my friends Pam and Gary, along with me. We tried a game that was new to all of us – the abstract board game, Blokus.

I wanted to try it because everyone gives this game high marks, and this was the game I gave the owners to try out. The e-mail I received back from them was “We Love Blokus!”. So, now I was curious.

This is a very unassuming game. It is a gray plastic board with each player getting a set of 21 colored tile pieces that are similar to what you would see in the game Tetris. There are four seperate colors.

The goal of the game is to place as many of your pieces as possible. The player with the least amount of pieces in the end is the winner. Sounds like a no brainer, right…

That’s what we thought. We all said “That’s it? There has to be more.” Well, the catch is that when you place your piece, it can only touch a corner of your other pieces – not a side.

About half-way through the game, it gets evil. By that time, everyone is spreading into each other’s territory and you are losing valuable real estate pretty quickly. A wrong placement will mess you up for the rest of the game – as will larger tiles.

We found that playing into the angles seemed to work really well. I tried a pattern that looked like “fingers” but it did not work so well. I had five pieces left over and both Pam and Gary went out and tied with no pieces left.

This game is ADDICTING! Watch OUT! We played two games and were prepared for a third, but wanted to get a solid game of Ticket To Ride: Nordic Countries in.

At one point in the evening, one of us actually said “Oh, I get it! Block Us! The name makes perfect sense. What a great name.”

We did not play the special Three-Player variant. This gets even more tough. It adds a fourth player that each player makes moves for. So, not only does it take up more real estate on the board, but it also allows the other players to work against each other with one extra set of colors they are playing tug-of-war with. There are several other variants as well.

If you like abstract types of games that really make you think, we highly reccomend this one. As I stated in the title, we were greatly surprised by the addictivness of this game – and part of it is because it is quick to play.

If you have kids that are of about 7-10 years old or know someone looking for something to strain the brain muscles – look no further than this game. It is going to be a perfect board game gift for the holidays. You might even consider coupling this game with another one like Rumis.