Board Game Shopper scours the internet to bring you the latest prices from Australia's biggest online retailers. Simply enter the title of a game and the Shopper will do the rest—handy for comparing prices, or tracking down those obscure, hard to find games. Stores searched include the following. Now you can play the original award winning board game Qwirkle on. Solo, Online, and Pass and Play modes all support up to 4 players.
Qwirkle is a great game for introducing non-gamers or casual gamers to something a little more strategic, and is fantastic for bringing young players into the fold. There’s been plenty written on this page about that, and I agree with just about all of it. I do have one small problem with it though, and it’s one that the rules book almost addresses… then doesn’t.
When playing with more aggressive gamers, it’s very easy to create situations that significantly lock up the board early on, making play incredibly difficult and often “grindy”.
You're not sure how much time you, or humanity itself, has left.
Early in the game the first time I played it (which I must admit I waited waaaaay too long for), the other player and I discovered that in a two-player game, by creating an intersection of the same set, it is possible to limit the remaining playable pieces to an incredibly small subset of all the remaining tiles. For example, if the game begins with a row of the blue square, the red square, and the yellow square, the next player can jam the board by placing two other squares of different colors intersecting the red square. This creates a situation where the only legal plays are at the ends of those three-tile lines, and those plays MUST be squares, which by then have likely all been played out from the players’ hands. The game stalemates into a “trade-go” pattern until somebody gets one of the remaining 11 non-red squares from the set of 90-odd tiles still in the bag.
Much of the imagery that comes with the game (including the image used on this very page) seems to imply that there should be a consistency to the arrangement of color lines versus shape lines (“colors go East/West, while shapes go North/South”). Human behavior naturally trends towards this gestalt as well, as we’re psychologically hardwired to try to find and create organized structure in things — it’s comforting to us. The rules don’t require us to play this way though, and in fact actually present an example diagram where something like this has happened (http://iloveboardgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Qwirkle-Rules.pdf) . The problem lies in getting through the jams when this happens early in the game, and said jams are pretty easy to force.
| Publisher(s) | Mindware (Division of OTC Subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway) |
|---|---|
| Publication date | 2006 |
| Genre(s) | Abstract, Family, Tile-laying |
| Players | 2-4 Players |
| Setup time | 1 minute |
| Playing time | 30–45 minutes |
| Random chance | Moderate |
| Skill(s) required | Strategy, Logic |
Qwirkle is a tile-based game for 2 to 4 players, designed by Susan McKinley Ross and published by MindWare. Qwirkle shares some characteristics with the games Rummikub and Scrabble. It is distributed in Canada by game and puzzle company, Outset Media. Qwirkle is considered by MindWare to be its most awarded game of all time.[1] In 2011, Qwirkle won the Spiel des Jahres, widely considered the most prestigious award in the board and card game industry.[citation needed] A sequel, Qwirkle Cubes, was released by Mindware in 2009.[2]
Equipment[edit]
Qwirkle comes with 108 wooden tiles, and each tile is painted with one of 6 shapes in one of 6 colors.[1] The box also contains a bag to store the tiles and a rule book.
Play[edit]
The game begins with all the tiles being placed in the bag and mixed thoroughly. Each player then randomly draws 6 tiles. During their turn, a player may either:
- place one or several tiles on the table; or
- instead of playing tiles, exchange one or more tiles in their hand for other random tiles.
In general, any tiles that are placed in a row must share one attribute (either color or shape), and they must be played in one line, although they do not need to touch other tiles being placed in that turn.
A player must always end a turn with 6 tiles, so, if they place tiles during a turn, they draw random tiles to build their hand back up to 6.
Play continues until one person uses all of their available tiles and there are no more tiles to be drawn.
Scoring[edit]
Players score 1 point for each tile placed within a line, including existing tiles within the line. The idea is to form lines that have each shape of a certain color, or each color of a certain shape. For example: if there are 3 stars placed down on the grid (1 green, 1 blue, and 1 purple), then the player can put down another star that is red, orange or yellow. If a line is completed (this is called a 'qwirkle'), then an additional 6 points is added to the player's score.
At the end of the game, once there are no more tiles to be drawn to replenish one's hand, the first person to play all of their tiles gains an extra 6 point bonus, at which point the game ends, and the player who has the highest score wins.
Awards[edit]
- 2011 Spiel des Jahres
- Parent's Choice Gold Award
- Mensa Select Award
- Major Fun Award
References[edit]
- ^ ab'Qwirkle: MindWare's Best-Selling Game of All Time'. MindWare. 2012. Retrieved 3 June 2012.
- ^'Qwirkle Cubes 2009'. BoardGameGeek. 2012. Retrieved 3 June 2012.
- Author: admin
- Category: Category
Board Game Shopper scours the internet to bring you the latest prices from Australia's biggest online retailers. Simply enter the title of a game and the Shopper will do the rest—handy for comparing prices, or tracking down those obscure, hard to find games. Stores searched include the following. Now you can play the original award winning board game Qwirkle on. Solo, Online, and Pass and Play modes all support up to 4 players.
Qwirkle is a great game for introducing non-gamers or casual gamers to something a little more strategic, and is fantastic for bringing young players into the fold. There’s been plenty written on this page about that, and I agree with just about all of it. I do have one small problem with it though, and it’s one that the rules book almost addresses… then doesn’t.
When playing with more aggressive gamers, it’s very easy to create situations that significantly lock up the board early on, making play incredibly difficult and often “grindy”.
You're not sure how much time you, or humanity itself, has left.
Early in the game the first time I played it (which I must admit I waited waaaaay too long for), the other player and I discovered that in a two-player game, by creating an intersection of the same set, it is possible to limit the remaining playable pieces to an incredibly small subset of all the remaining tiles. For example, if the game begins with a row of the blue square, the red square, and the yellow square, the next player can jam the board by placing two other squares of different colors intersecting the red square. This creates a situation where the only legal plays are at the ends of those three-tile lines, and those plays MUST be squares, which by then have likely all been played out from the players’ hands. The game stalemates into a “trade-go” pattern until somebody gets one of the remaining 11 non-red squares from the set of 90-odd tiles still in the bag.
Much of the imagery that comes with the game (including the image used on this very page) seems to imply that there should be a consistency to the arrangement of color lines versus shape lines (“colors go East/West, while shapes go North/South”). Human behavior naturally trends towards this gestalt as well, as we’re psychologically hardwired to try to find and create organized structure in things — it’s comforting to us. The rules don’t require us to play this way though, and in fact actually present an example diagram where something like this has happened (http://iloveboardgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Qwirkle-Rules.pdf) . The problem lies in getting through the jams when this happens early in the game, and said jams are pretty easy to force.
| Publisher(s) | Mindware (Division of OTC Subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway) |
|---|---|
| Publication date | 2006 |
| Genre(s) | Abstract, Family, Tile-laying |
| Players | 2-4 Players |
| Setup time | 1 minute |
| Playing time | 30–45 minutes |
| Random chance | Moderate |
| Skill(s) required | Strategy, Logic |
Qwirkle is a tile-based game for 2 to 4 players, designed by Susan McKinley Ross and published by MindWare. Qwirkle shares some characteristics with the games Rummikub and Scrabble. It is distributed in Canada by game and puzzle company, Outset Media. Qwirkle is considered by MindWare to be its most awarded game of all time.[1] In 2011, Qwirkle won the Spiel des Jahres, widely considered the most prestigious award in the board and card game industry.[citation needed] A sequel, Qwirkle Cubes, was released by Mindware in 2009.[2]
Equipment[edit]
Qwirkle comes with 108 wooden tiles, and each tile is painted with one of 6 shapes in one of 6 colors.[1] The box also contains a bag to store the tiles and a rule book.
Play[edit]
The game begins with all the tiles being placed in the bag and mixed thoroughly. Each player then randomly draws 6 tiles. During their turn, a player may either:
- place one or several tiles on the table; or
- instead of playing tiles, exchange one or more tiles in their hand for other random tiles.
In general, any tiles that are placed in a row must share one attribute (either color or shape), and they must be played in one line, although they do not need to touch other tiles being placed in that turn.
A player must always end a turn with 6 tiles, so, if they place tiles during a turn, they draw random tiles to build their hand back up to 6.
Play continues until one person uses all of their available tiles and there are no more tiles to be drawn.
Scoring[edit]
Players score 1 point for each tile placed within a line, including existing tiles within the line. The idea is to form lines that have each shape of a certain color, or each color of a certain shape. For example: if there are 3 stars placed down on the grid (1 green, 1 blue, and 1 purple), then the player can put down another star that is red, orange or yellow. If a line is completed (this is called a 'qwirkle'), then an additional 6 points is added to the player's score.
At the end of the game, once there are no more tiles to be drawn to replenish one's hand, the first person to play all of their tiles gains an extra 6 point bonus, at which point the game ends, and the player who has the highest score wins.
Awards[edit]
- 2011 Spiel des Jahres
- Parent's Choice Gold Award
- Mensa Select Award
- Major Fun Award
References[edit]
- ^ ab'Qwirkle: MindWare's Best-Selling Game of All Time'. MindWare. 2012. Retrieved 3 June 2012.
- ^'Qwirkle Cubes 2009'. BoardGameGeek. 2012. Retrieved 3 June 2012.