Ingenious Board Game

Ingenious is an abstract game that combines a strategy, luck and simplicity. Players take turns placing tiles - two hexagons joined together with a colour on each half - from their hand onto a hexagonal grid and drawing a new tile from a bag. Points are scored for creating straight lines of a single colour radiating from the hexes just placed. The game ends when no further tiles can be placed.

The interesting part of the game is in the scoring; each player has a scoreboard to record their current score in each colour and your total score is equal to your score in the colour for which you have the fewest points. It's not enough to concentrate on scoring in a few colours. This creates evolving strategies of trying to score in a highly in a colour before blocking it off to prevent opponents from doing so themselves.

- it scales very well from 2-4 players (the size of the playing area varies depending on number of players), can be played as two teams of two, and can be played solitaire (more of a puzzle than a game)
- very simple rules (anyone who has played Dominoes will pick this up fairly quickly)
- components are very nice - chunky plastic tiles and a good quality board
- the tiles are differentiated by colour and by unique symbols (red star, purple ring, etc.), meaning that the colour-blind can play easily

Ingenious is a fun abstract game (certainly more fun that chess, but lacking the silly theme of something like “Hey, that’s my fish!”). Not one of my favourites, but I wouldn't turn down a game.

Reiner Knizia's games typically feature abstract mechanics and interesting scoring systems and this is no exception.

Placed tiles score for contiguous identical shapes in a line from the placed tile. Each shape scores separately and at the end of the game, your score is that of the shape you scored least.

Though tiles are randomly drawn, the ability to refresh your tiles in certain situations, combined with the scoring system and the necessity of bearing in mind all opponents' possible moves means that skill plays a far bigger role.

Scoring can allow an opponent to score even more if you're not careful and each placement feels almost like a puzzle, maximising your opportunities relative to your opponents'.

Partially thanks to variable board size the game plays well with 2, 3 or 4 and if you're looking for an abstract game requiring thoughtful consideration that remains accessible and doesn't get bogged down with the analysis paralysis that perfect information can provoke, look no further.

A tradition that has become... well traditional, on boxing day, is to go over my inlaw's with a board game. The type of boardgames I have (high fantasy or horror) aren't really Nanna's cup of tea. So instead I pilfer the vast stocks that lie in wait for me at my own parents house.

As we're starting to play the same games, my long suffering lady wife Louise's mother, has started buying me boardgames for christmas... well it's not for christmas it's for boxing day really, but I digress (as usual)

Well, this year I got "Ingenious" (the board game that is) which is a tile matching game. Sounds fun!? Well. It's a lot better than it sounds.

Basically it's like hexagonal dominos, but with just colors not numbers. You place down one of six double tiles that you have and match them to the same colors on the board. It sounds too simple to be fun, but infact it's a very strategic game. There are six colors in total and you each have a score board with colums from 0-18 and a row for each color with a colored block for each. As you score with a certain color you move that particular block higher up the score board. If you get to 18 with any color you shout "Ingenious" and get another go. It's possible to have several Ingenious's in a row. The winner is the player who has the highest lowest scoring color.
So for instance, if my lowest scoring color was 10 and your was 9, I'd beat you!

It's a game for 1-4 players and doesn't take long to set up or learn, which makes it a perfect game for a family game night. The components themselves remind me of scrabble, as you have the same scrabble racks to hold your tiles and you have a large bag to pick your tiles from. They're all high quality and look like they'll last a long time.