Just One

Just One is a game from 2018. It was nominated for many awards, and it won many too, the most prestigious one being the Spiel des Jahres (2019). This is a party game and a cooperative game. The idea is simple. Every round one person plays the active player and needs to guess a word. That word is known to everyone else, and everyone must give a one word clue to help the active player guess the word. These clues are written down independently. The twist is before showing the clues to the active player, they are revealed among the other players at the same time, and if any of the clues given are the same, these repeated clues must be hidden. If there are too many clashes, the active player may end up with just one clue or even none at all. As clue givers, your dilemma is you don't want to give clues which are so common that someone else would be giving the same clue. Yet if everyone avoids those obvious clues, then the clues you give might end up to be too obscure to help the active player. A full game is played for 13 rounds, and you try to get any many correct guesses as possible. Each round, the active player can only make one guess. Everyone takes turns being the active player. 

These two words below were the only two clues I had when I was the active player. What would your guess be?  

My guess was "alien", and I was right. That wasn't too hard. 

The words to guess are printed on cards. Each card has five words. The active player draws a card and shows it to everyone else without looking at it himself. He then states a number from 1 to 5. That determines which word on the card needs to be guessed. In one round we had this card below, and the word to guess was the fourth one - "cycle". 

These were the clues we gave - "wheel", "race", "repeat", "life". Would you have guessed it correctly? As you can see, we are making use of the fact that some words have multiple meanings, or are commonly used with some other words. 

Here are some other examples of cards in the game: 

The game is certainly playable as a family game, just that depending on the age of the children playing, you have to adjust how you give clues. 

We prepared a stack of 13 cards when we set up the game, because the game is played over 13 rounds. If we made a correct guess, we placed the card face-up. Otherwise, we placed it face-down. We were not doing so well. 

One of the words we had to guess was "drag". Other players gave clues like "pull" and "movement". I gave the clue "queen", because there is a term "drag queen". Some players did not understand at all why I gave this clue. Thankfully the active player understood and made the correct guess. In this case "queen" was an important clue, because he had to find one word which was associated with every single clue. The other clues were closely related, and many words were related to them. However to find a word which also related to "queen" was not easy, and the active player realised it was "drag". 

As you play, you kind of get a feel for what kind of clues your friends tend to give. I became known as the guy who gave quirky clues. So others would try to avoid giving such clues. Maybe one person will always give the simplest and most straight-forward clue. Others on the team can somewhat collaborate by letting him give such clues and avoiding such clues themselves. 

Try to guess this word. The answer will be shown at the bottom. The clues are "junior", "student", "starting", "school", "foundation", "pupil". 

Here's another one: "vision", "light", "dark", "underground", "car", "drill". 

I keep thinking of Just One as a game from India, because Jaswant is a common Indian name. The concept is very simple. Yet it is captivating. A clever idea implemented well. This is something casual gamers and non-gamers can quickly get into. It's an excellent game for a social setting because all those clues will trigger much discussion. It's a great ice-breaker. 

~~~ Answers ~~~

Clues: "junior", "student", "starting", "school", "foundation", "pupil". Answer: "primary". 

Clues: "vision", "light", "dark", "underground", "car", "drill". Answer: "tunnel". 

Burst

Burst is a light card game that can be described as group Black Jack. That’s just like my game Pinocchio, but in Pinocchio the cards are hidden. In Burst you can see all the cards played. 

On your turn you either draw a card or play a card to the centre of the table. You have a hand size of three, so if you have three cards, you must play one. Cards in hand are your points. They are scored only at the end of the round, and you score points only if you do not go bust. Going bust means playing a card that makes the total on the table go beyond 21. This only happens when you have three cards and you are forced to play a card. Having three high cards in hand is good, but only if you don’t go bust. 

The card distribution is wide. There are many 1’s and 0’s. There are some cards from 2 to 10. The big cards go up to 15, but there are few of them.  There are some negative numbers. 

Some cards have special powers, for example allowing you to remove another card from the pool, to take a card into your hand, or to reverse the order of play. 

When anyone goes bust, the round ends and they score nothing. Everyone else scores according to their cards in hand. People will tend to be greedy and want to keep the high cards. However taking a third card always comes with risk. When you have two high cards, it is hard to resist drawing your third card because you cannot bear to part with a high card. Yet if you go bust all is for naught. 

In this game you have plenty of opportunities to hurt your opponents. The card distribution and card powers help players push the total to 21 or near 21. If the next player has three cards and doesn’t have a small enough card to play, he is doomed. There will be unexpected twists of fate. An untimely reverse can kill some players. Sometimes several players with three cards can survive a high total because they have 0’s, negative cards, or cards with powers. 

In the first game I played, the game felt draggy because we scored low every round. I felt the winning score should be 50 and not 100. Only in my second game I realised it was possible to score quite high. So 100 feels right. You can always choose a lower target if you want to make the game shorter. I think this is a wonderful game. Simple, exciting, and full of surprises. 

Duo Quest

Rizal's 1+1 Studio is a computer game development studio. Developing a computer game is a long project, and while his team is working on their first game title, they went on a side quest and turned it into a physical board game. That was how Duo Quest was born. Rizal joined our ranks of local Malaysian indie game publishers this year, and has been going to many of the same fairs and events as us. Duo Quest always does well, and his table is always one of the most happening. He has explained the game to me before, but I never had the chance to sit down to play, because I was busy with my own booth. Only when we went to the Thailand Board Game Show together that I had a chance to try the game myself. Neither of us spoke Thai and we had to depend on our local assistants to teach our games. Because of that we had more free time. 

Duo Quest is a cooperative game. Despite the fantasy theme, this is actually a party game. The box says two players, but it works well with three or four. This is a game which tests how well you know your friends. Or it can be a game that helps new friends get to know one another better. Quickly, and with some depth. 

Since this is fantasy, you will have to fight a monster. The monster has life points, and so does your team. The goal is to defeat the enemy by reducing its life points to zero. Every round you take the top card from the monster deck to place in the active area. This will be the monster's action for the round. You also take cards from the player deck. These are your possible options. The active player picks two cards, reads them, and decides which action to attempt. You can tell the action type and card value from the card back, but you don't know the question on the front. The higher the card value, the harder the question. 

To be able to execute the selected action, everyone must be able to write down the same answer (of course, without any discussion). The question is posed to the active player, and he must answer it by writing it down and not showing anyone. The other players must then guess what that answer is, simultaneously writing down their answers. If everyone guesses correctly, this action will be executed. However, if anyone gets it wrong, then this action will become the monster's action. Things can go south very quickly. You might be planning to deal the killing blow, but if you fail to execute the action, the monster will hit you hard instead. 

The game system has a basic card deck and many themed decks. Questions in the basic deck are more general, for example, are you an introvert or extrovert? Which is more important, art or science? Do you like children? The themed decks will have more specific questions, for example about love and relationships. There is even one deck which requires some physical exertion. All these questions will test how well you know your friends. If it is a new friend, the game reveals how you perceive them. 

After the players have chosen their actions, it is the monster's turn to pose a question. If everyone is able to write down the same answer to the monster's question, its action strength is reduced. Getting this right can be crucial. After all questions have been dealt with, you execute all the actions. Defences block part or all of the attacks. Anything which gets through deals damage. Potions heal. I only tried the basic game. In the more advanced decks there are other card powers and the advanced monsters have more fanciful abilities too. 

Now I can appreciate why Duo Quest triggers so much laughter. This game sparks much discussion. It gives you that feeling of "so you're that kind of person".  This is a simple game which non-gamers can easily get into and enjoy. I find this is a great game for chasing girls (or boys) too! 

Cat & Chocolate

 

Cat & Chocolate is a game from Japan first published in 2010. It is an award winner in Japan. This is a party game and it is of the type where you need to be a convincing speaker. This is partly a social deduction game. Players are divided into two teams. You know which team you belong to, but you have no idea who your teammates are. When the game ends, your team identities are revealed, and each team adds up their points to see who wins. What this means is throughout the game you want to do your best to score points, because that will help, regardless of which team you are on. 

Every round, one player will be the storyteller, and the others the judges. As the storyteller, you reveal one situation card from the deck, and you must play one, two or three item cards from your hand which can be used to resolve the situation. You have a hand of only three cards. Your job is to convince everyone that the item or items you play will help you get out that particular difficult situation. After you explain, everyone else votes and this determines whether you score one point. The game keeps going like this, until the game end card turns up. The game end card is inserted roughly in the middle of the deck before the game starts. 

The two factions, and some of the situations

The scenarios are all horror movie type situations. Everything happens in an old mysterious mansion. You have ghosts, monsters, zombies and so on. In most cases you are simply trying to survive an attack. 

When we played, the key question asked by Alex was how were we going to know who was on which team. There is nothing in the rules or game components which will help the players determine who is on which team. It is all up to the players themselves. You can tell others which team you are on. You can lie about it too. This part of the game has unreliable fun, and by that I mean whether it is fun depends a lot on the players. It can be fun, and it might also be boring. In my opinion the designer should do a bit more work to make the fun more reliable. 

If through discussion you manage to figure out who is friend and who is foe, the storytelling part of the game may become pointless. You should always vote yes for your teammates, and no for your opponents. I feel the intention of the designer is you should not figure out your teams during the game. It is only meant for the end-game revelation. 

The game is disappointing to me, especially since this was an award winner. However this was back in 2010, and at that time there probably weren't that many modern games designed in Japan in the first place. Japanese game design certainly has come a long way since then. Cat & Chocolate is that type of party game which depends on the creativity and expressiveness of the players. The kind with performances and judges. Not really my cup of tea. Also the design feels a little dated, now that I have seen many better Japanese games. 

Farter Knows Best (屁者先知)

Officially the name of this game is Pizhe Xianzhi, which is just gibberish if you don’t know Chinese. So I’m going to give it my own name - Farter Knows Best. When I came across this game in Taiwan, my first thought was that the Thai farting game made it to Taiwan. That game is Betakkuma’s Fart and Furious. However, upon closer inspection, I realised this was not a retheme, but a completely different game designed in Taiwan. Both the games are about farting in a lift (elevator). Is this an Asian thing or what? I should design a Malaysian farting game to complete the Asian farting game trilogy.

The other Asian farting game which is from Thailand

Farter Knows Best and Fart & Furious play very differently, despite the same setting. Farter Knows Best is a social deduction game and a team game. You need at least five players. Maximum is ten. At the start of the game everyone will be given a secret identity card. This tells you which team you are on. 

These are the various identities in the game. Most of the time you play with just the first row. Most players will be regular passengers, and they are all on the same team. The other team is the farters. The farters have the green balloons. In the photo above you notice that the English translation of the farter is "liar". That's because in Taiwan "farting" is a slang for "lying" or talking rubbish. Depending on the number of players, sometimes the farters don't know who their teammates are. In most cases the farters will know their teammates and they can collaborate. 

The game is played over at most 8 rounds. Your objective is to eliminate the other team, by either voting them out, or having them pass out from smelling too much fart. Everyone starts with a health bar and you take damage whenever you smell fart. There are always more passengers than farters, so the farters need to hide their identities or risk getting lynched. 

The 8 rounds in the game represent the 8 floors the lift will stop at. At four of the floors, nothing will happen. At the other four, someone will fart. The most important concept in this game is that the farter team knows on which floors someone will fart.

These above are the fart and no-fart cards. Among the fart cards, some are regular farts, and some are power farts. There will always be at least one power fart card in play. It's up to you what kind of mix you want to use. Power farts may deal more damage, or they may have lingering effects. 

Every round, before the fart card (I'll call those no-fart cards as fart cards too) is revealed, everyone gets to decide whether to play an action card for the round. This is played face-down. Once everyone has decided, the fart card is revealed. You then resolve the round in turn order. If there is no fart, generally nothing happens. If there is a fart, generally everyone will take damage. Most action cards only take effect when there is a fart. These can protect you, or they can deal damage to others. 

If there has been a fart, you most do a vote to eliminate a player. You can discuss, but voting is done in a simultaneous manner. During discussion, only those who have played an action card may speak. Anyone who hasn't played one must keep quiet. When a player is voted out, the identity is not revealed. Players who are eliminated can check their cards, and they will tell the surviving players whether the game has ended, i.e. all on one team eliminated. 

Drawing cards is hard. You only start with a hand of 4 cards, which is not enough to last you 8 rounds. You need to think carefully when to play an action card. The deep breath card lets you draw 2 cards, but only if no one farts. If someone does, you take double damage. So this is a high risk card. Some other action cards may also help you draw cards, if they are played at the right time. 

Since the farter team knows when there is fart, they hold very powerful information. They know exactly when they should or should not play a certain card. Anyone who happens to play the right cards at the right time, especially when doing this several rounds in a row, will become a prime suspect. 

If you like games similar to Werewolf, this is certainly one to check out. You get all the accusations and reasoning flying around, and here you have more basis for meaningful deduction. Why is she attacking me instead of him? They must both be in the farter team! And he seems to know when exactly to play this card. He must be on the farter team. The identity of the eliminated player not being revealed adds to the challenge of the game, and I think that's a good thing. My friends and I played several games in one sitting, and often the identities of the farters were still being debated when the game ended. 

If you have a large group of casual players, this game works well. Although the game is in Chinese, we are able to play with friends who don't know Chinese because there are only a handful of cards to remember.

One thing I am amazed by is the character cards which come with the game. When I played with my friends, I intentionally left out the character cards. Normally you'd play with them, and they give you all sorts of special abilities. Since my group was all non-gamers, I decided to leave these out. I find the game works just fine without them. Once you know the game well, there is a ton of characters you can play with. Just look at that whole deck of cards in this photo above. So much artwork done! 

Coco Boom

The Game

Coco Boom is a game I am excited to write about, because I had so much fun with it. I played it at the Asian Board Games Festival in Penang. I only bought two games that whole long weekend and this was one of them. It is a party game, and I am not even a party game person. I normally blog about games in the sequence that I play them. I am supposed to write about seven other games before I get to Coco Boom. However, I am going to let it cut queue because hey, life is not fair.

Coco Boom is a push-your-luck party game from Taiwan. it is a card game and there are only four types of cards in the game. There are three types of coconut cards valued at 300, 500 and 1000. There is a bomb card valued at -500. At the start of the game, everyone gets a hand of cards. Every round, everyone adds one card face-down to a central deck. You know what you have added but you don’t know what the others have added. The start player adds two cards instead, so he has a little bit more information. The shared deck is shuffled, and the round starts.

On your turn, you try to guess what the top card is. If you are right, you can choose to claim that card or you can take a risk and guess the next card. If you are right again, you will be able to claim all the cards you have guessed correctly so far. However, if you are wrong, you leave empty handed. If you keep guessing correctly, you can continue guessing, further pushing your luck. Pushing your luck is tempting because if you can win a second or third card, the values of your cards increase.

You play until the deck runs out. Then you start a new round with everyone contributing cards again to form a new deck. 

Let's talk about the bomb. When you take a guess, you can't guess the bomb. When you reveal the top card from the deck, if it is a bomb, everyone slams his hand on the card, and whoever is slowest is forced to take the bomb. So this is partly a reflex / speed game as well. The copy I bought came with a Christmas promo. A new type of bomb card is added which looks very much like the normal bomb. The only difference is a little Santa Claus hat. If a Christmas bomb card shows up, you are not supposed to touch it. Whoever does so first is forced to take the card. 

The game is played until someone scores 3000, or until there are not enough cards left to start a new round. Richest player wins. 

The Play

At the Asian Board Games Festival, Tom's table playing this game was one of the loudest in the hall. The other loudest tables were BGN (Board Game Night) and Wisebox, both from Thailand. When I sat down to play Coco Boom, and this was with a group of people I didn't know, I understood why. 

This is a gambling game. You are guessing what the next card is, but there is some basis for you to guess. There are more 300's than there are 1000's. When more and more cards have been claimed, you can count what are left. The card or cards you have added to the shared deck is also information you use to make a guess. When other people fail to guess the second or further cards, what they have revealed go back to the deck. This is the most useful information because now you know for sure what are in the deck. There is always tension between greed and playing it safe. I love guessing 1000 and getting them. The 300's are a safer guess because there are more of them, but when you guess 300 and draw a 1000, you start questioning your life choices. Why should I not be great?! Why not me?! Why should I not put on the Ring?!

There is plenty of drama in the game. Here's one situation I experienced. There were only three cards left in the deck. One player guessed a 500 and a 300 correctly, and there was only one card left. If he guessed that one correctly too, all three of his cards would be worth 200 extra per card. He guessed 300, but it turned out to be a 500! So he had to surrender the 500 and 300 back to the deck. By now the next player knew all the cards in the deck - two 500's and one 300. But which one was he going to guess first? 500 seemed to be the better bet, with a 66% chance of being correct. If you do get it right, are you going to take the next guess? Or are you going to settle with 500? It's a simple game, but you encounter these juicy decisions all the time. 

The Thoughts

Coco Boom is a simple and happy game. It works better with more players. It's a game you can teach easily and it's great for non-gamers. There is a fair bit of luck, so this is not the kind of game your distrusting aunt will complain about you being the expert gamer always winning. It is a simple game so the playing field is pretty level. For gamers, this is a fun filler. You don't schedule game night around it. I bought a copy despite not generally being a fan of party games because I see there are lots of situations I can bring this out. This is a party game which is not about trivia, not about judging one another, not about doing any performance, and not about persuading people. If these are the things which make you stay away from party games, check out Coco Boom. 

Flip 7

The Game

Flip 7 is currently H, O, T, hot! I remember coming across it before it was this hot. I thought the game mechanism was clever indeed but I didn’t sit down to play or buy a copy. By now it has been nominated for and won several awards. 

Flip 7 is a push-your-luck game and a party game. Every round everyone has a chance to score points. If you want to score more you need to take bigger risks. There is a risk of leaving empty handed. Cards in the game are numbered 0 to 12. There are twelve cards numbered 12, eleven cards numbered 11, and so on, down to a single 1 and also a single 0. Every round you start with one card. On your turn you choose to either draw a card or exit the round and score. If you exit, you score the sum of the values of your cards. Drawing means you are potentially increasing that sum, but if you draw a number you already have, you go bust and you are out of the round, scoring nothing. 

If you manage to flip over 7 cards without going bust, you score a huge bonus. There are some special cards in the game. You can force another player out of a round. You can get an extra life, i.e. in case you draw a repeat number, you can discard it without going bust. You can also make one player draw several cards in a row (including yourself). That can force them to go bust, or possibly suddenly give them many points. 

The game ends when anyone reaches 200 points. That’s all there is to the game. 

The Play

I did a three player game with Allen and Han on BoardGameArena.com. The first thing I’ll say is this is a game that is best played in person. The excitement of seeing what card is revealed is mostly lost when the game is played in asynchronous mode. Han made it to seven cards once, but we weren’t there to cheer for him. It must have been a very exciting moment when you are on your sixth card and you need to decide whether to attempt the seventh. 

There is certainly some luck in the game. If you are unlucky, you’ll go bust even on your second card. However you always have a sense of control because after all you are the one deciding whether to draw another card. Some cards seem to be very powerful take-that cards. At first I wondered whether this would lead to a poor play experience because players may feel they are arbitrarily attacked. Now that I have played the game, I realise these are a good way to balance the game, allowing players to slow down any unusually lucky leader who has sprinted far ahead. 

Although you can only control your own fate, whether to draw a card is not a solo game type decision. If your opponents are far ahead, you’d need to take risks to catch up. If you are leading comfortably you probably want to go slow and steady, and get to 200 safely. So this is a game with good player interaction. 

The Thoughts

Flip 7 is a game about gambling and greed. When you are behind, you will have that mindset of I just need to go big and I'll turn the tables in one round. You really see human psychology in play in this game. Yet this is a simple game. There is nothing particularly new about it, but it works very well and provides an enjoyable experience. Non-gamers will pick up the rules in no time. Experienced gamers will have fun with it too. The concept is so simple that it makes me wonder why this game wasn't already designed twenty years ago. Sometimes genius is in the simplicity. 

Asian Games: the Drama series, Watchlist, Folded Wishes

I shall continue to write about games I tried at the Asian Board Games Festival (Malaysia) in Penang. This time I will write about games from Taiwan and the Philippines. Drama Job Hunting is a party game from Taiwan. It is the fourth and latest game from the Drama series. It is the simplest version to date. It can be used as a children's game and for education purposes. 

If this game were to be translated to English, I think an apt name would be Drama Queen. 

Let me talk about the core idea in the series. Every round an options card is drawn and shown to all players. The card lists six items. One player will be the actor for the round. The actor draws a number card which will show a number between 1 to 6. Only he gets to see this. He must then act out the item under this number on the options card. He can't speak or use sound effects. He can only use gestures and facial expressions. The other players all try to guess the correct answer. After everyone has made a guess, the correct answer is revealed. Whoever gets it wrong is penalised. However if everyone gets it wrong, then the problem is the actor. The actor is penalised instead. You can decide up front what the penalty should be. So yes, this can be a drinking game. If you are not playing with children. 

In Drama Job Hunting, the possible answers are all occupations. This sounds easy but on some cards the occupations are similar, for example taxi driver, ambulance driver and bus driver. Generally this is easier than the other versions. This might not be very interesting for seasoned gamers. I find the other versions more enticing.

Drama Bar is different in that you can't use gestures of facial expressions. You can only use your voice. The options card shows a specific phrase you must say. The list of six items are the possible situations in which you say this particular phrase. Let's use the example below to better illustrate this.

The phrase you have to say here is simply "Sorry". The 6 different situations are: 

1. Accidentally touching someone on the bus.
2. Being late. 
3. Your girlfriend forces you to apologise.
4. Your phone rings when you are at the library.
5. You forget the person's name.
6. You are asking a person to let you pass through.

How are you going to express these different situations by simply saying "sorry"? Not so simple eh?

This one is "What time is it?"  The possibilities: 

1. Mom who is cooking in the kitchen saying this to Dad who is in the living room.
2. Your friend is late by one hour.
3. Your employee is late by one hour.
4. You are asking a passer by the time.
5. You have overslept and you are panicking, asking the person lying next to you.
6. You just remember that there is a show you want to catch.

When playing Drama Bar, you have to cover your face, so you won't be able to express yourself using your facial expression. This can be quite challenging indeed. So far this is my favourite among them all. 

I am guessing Drama Oscar is the first in the series. You need to act out an emotion, and that emotion can be caused by very different things. 

The emotion here is being secretly thrilled or tickled. The possible reasons are: 

1. You see your headmaster slip and fall.
2. You are a young and innocent lady and someone has just confessed their love to you.
3. You overhear a conversation and they are saying how handsome you are.
4. You are the top student and you see that you are top of the class yet again.
5. At the Oscars the host announce that you win the best actress award.
6. You hear on the radio that the Taiwanese baseball team has defeated the Korean team in a comeback victory. (context: this is a game from Taiwan)

Drama Arena is about kung fu moves and spellcasting. This is a version which gives you plenty of opportunities to be creative. 

You can even get two actors to perform at the same time, and they can fight each other. This one above is about casting a summoning spell. The possibilities: 

1. Summon the magical staff.
2. Summon the black tuna.
3. Summon the waiter.
4. Summon the giant peach. (I'm not sure whether this has any naughty connotation) 
5. Summon the Sphinx. 
6. Summon a portal. 

This card is for water magic. 

1. Dragon Shot.
2. Dragon Spiral. 
3. Waterfall Attack.
4. Water Storm. 
5. Rain Arrows.
6. Water Cannon. 

The Drama series is doing well in Taiwan, and they have four different versions now. Tom is interested to bring it beyond Taiwan. To do this in other regions and languages, a lot of localisation work will be required. If any publisher out there is interested, get in touch with him. 

Watchlist is a game from the Philippines. It is a real-time cooperative game that can be played in five minutes. One player is the undercover cop while the rest are regular cops. The undercover cop needs to help his team arrest all the suspects.

There are two sets of cards in the game and they are almost exactly the same. The only difference is one deck is in colour, and the other is black and white. The undercover cop gets the black and white deck, and the regular cops get the colour deck. At the start of the game, the undercover cop draws a certain number of cards from his deck. These are the suspects he must help his team arrest. The colour cards are distributed evenly to all the other players. The process in the game is everyone asking questions to the undercover cop to identify the current suspect. The undercover cop can only answer yes or no. You ask questions like whether the suspect is male or female, whether they are wearing a hat, whether they are holding something in their hand, and so on. One of the regular cops makes a guess by playing one of his cards. Only correct guesses will score points. 

Since this is a real-time game, the undercover cop will get bombarded with questions from all the other players. Whether the cards are coloured or black and white doesn't seem like a big deal, but this does pose a challenge. Some things in the drawings may be interpreted differently when there is no colour. 

Folded Wishes is a game that has gone beyond the Philippines and has reached the international market. Ludus is the original publisher, and B&B Games is the international publisher. 

Folded Wishes is an open information abstract game. Your goal is to arrange four of your pieces in a straight line. You will always have one tile in hand, and on your turn you will play this tile at one position along the edges of the play area. You place your game piece on this tile. You then push the tile into the play area, shifting that whole row of tiles. One tile will get pushed out from the other end of the play area. You'll pick this tile up for your next turn.

All the tiles have small icons and these are special powers you get to use. Some let you move your game piece, some let you move an opponent's piece, and some even let you swap your piece with an opponent's.

You can complete missions to earn additional powers. Missions come in the form of having your pieces arranged in specific patterns. When you earn a new power, the new power is linked to tiles in specific colours. You can only use these powers when you play a tile in that particular colour.

The game is chess-like, because this is a perfect information game. There are many tactics and strategies to explore.