Sophie and I were looking for a quick game after she finished up her homework and after digging around in the game closet she decided on Blokus. It’s been quite awhile since we’ve played and given that I had just talked to a friend at work about it after he received it as a gift, I thought it quite apropos.
All four colors of the Tetris-shaped tiles (blue, red, yellow, and green) are always used in the game. For two players, each player plays two colors. For three players, you alternate playing the fourth color, and for four players you each play a single color. The object of the game is to get rid of all of your tiles and as a bonus lay your single square tile as your last play. The board is a square grid made to accept and to hold the tiles securely in place. Each player must start in a corner and when a tile is placed, it must touch one of the previously placed tiles but only at the corners. A tile can touch any of the other colors but at no point can any of the same colored tiles lay directly against one another (you can see two yellow corners touching in the image as an example).
In general, early turns are quickly taken while each player expands out from their respective corners. It’s only when the colors start colliding and competing for the every shrinking real estate does it get interesting. The game has won awards and is a great way to keep the brain juices warmed up.