Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Quatro Qwirkles (Qwirkle)

This is not a new game, but it's new to me. My sister-in-law's (Jenn) family invited us over for a Remembrance Day barbecue yesterday which was so kind and generous. They fed us delicious barbecued chicken and steak and we had copious sides with which to indulge. After dinner and dessert, Jenn's mother asked if anyone was interested in a game of Qwirkle. Well, I'd never played it, but I'm always up for a game!
qwirkle family board game

The way they described the game to me as pretty accurate - it's like Scrabble without words. You start the game with 6 tiles with a variety of colours (6 in total) and shapes (also 6 in total). Instead of spelling words, you need to match colours or shapes. A row can have either have all the same colours (but no duplicates of shapes) or all the same shapes (but no duplicates of colours). If you look in the picture above, you see a Qwirkle (6 in a row) of blue colours near the bottom right. You'll notice that all 6 are different shapes. There is also another Qwirkle of sunbursts near the top middle of the page. You'll notice that all 6 are different colours. Basically, every turn you play as many tiles as you can onto one area that match the colours or shapes around them. You score points for every line you play in.

Let's say I had been the one to place that blue circle and blue sunburst to finish off that sunburst Qwirkle I mentioned before. I would score 2 points for the new blue line I started (1 point per tile) and 6 points for the sunburst line (6 points per tile) with a bonus 6 points for getting a Qwirkle - a total of 14 points. My best play of the game was a 20 pointer - I played the green, red, and orange squares near the top left, finishing off a red Qwirkle (12 points), making a 4 tile square line (4 points) and adding to the 4 tile green line (4 points). Whenever you play a tile, you draw out the bag back up to 6.

It was a tight game and I could feel it the whole way. I desperately wanted to play a tile near the end of the game, but I had a good feeling that Jenn's mom had the last piece to finish off a Qwirkle if I did that, so I held off. She did, however, play all of her pieces to end the game and get 6 bonus points. But, in the end, my four Qwirkles, a game high, had me hold on to first place by one point.

There was definitely a little bit of luck involved as several times I drew the exact piece I needed to finish off a Qwirkle on my next round. But, you've got to see the space. "Ol" there on the scoresheet played a red square right before me, but he missed using it to finish off a Qwirkle like I did.

The game took about 20 minutes to play (not including interruptions to get more pie) and was really fun. Quick, easy to pick up, no need for spelling, I really liked this one! It's just been added to me wish list.

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