Educational Insights Blokus Review

Blokus isn't your typical board game, and though it may resemble others, it stands alone in the way you play the game.  With the pieces on the board, you may be reminded of the old Tetris games where you try to fit the pieces in to the playing grid, but in this instance, you are trying to fit the pieces a little differently.  The person who is able to play all of their pieces on the board first is the winner, and this is done by taking turns going around the table.  You can have 1 to 4 players playing Blokus at any given time, or even more if you want to play with teams, and there are 4 different color pieces to split up with the group.

Setting up the board is as easy as opening up the box and setting it out, and then making sure that each of the different colors is given to a player.  If you have only 2 or 3 players, that is fine, as there are 21 colored pieces of green, blue, yellow, and red.  Simply choose the color that you want to represent you, and start it out by placing your piece anywhere on the grid.  As you play the game more often, you will start to figure out where the best places to put your individual pieces will be, but that is not important when you are just getting started.  Once you have placed the piece, everyone else takes a turn before it comes back to the first player.  The first player must then place a piece so that one corner is adjacent to a piece they already played.  It cannot go next to it, but has to be strategically placed so that at least one corner is adjacent.

The goal is to get all of your pieces on the board before your opponents, and that player is declared the winner.  Strategy comes in to play in regards to where you place your pieces, how you put them on the board, and if you are trying to block your opponent from spreading out his own pieces.  Sometimes you may come to a point of the game where nobody can place a piece, and at that moment, you count up all the played pieces, and the one with the most on the board is declared the winner.  Simple to understand, it becomes more difficult as the rounds progress, and after a while you will get hold of a strategy that works well for you.  Everyone's approach becomes slightly different, and that just makes the game even more exciting in later matches.

Blokus can be a fun and challenging game, but it can also bring with it frustrations if one person finds themselves struggling to place pieces.  The games can go pretty quickly, but if you have people that really want to think out moves, it could drag a little bit.  The recommended age of Blokus is from 5 years up to 12 years, but I think that it is a game that could have fans at an older age as well.  I have read that there are tournaments in Europe for fans of the game, and while that could be fun, it sounds a little intense for me.  This is also a game that promotes thinking and working things out in your mind, and I have always been a fan of games that make you use your brain power.  I highly recommend this as an option that would be fun to play as a family, and one which even the youngest member could understand how to play.

*Game includes 84 pieces (21 each of 4 colors), instructions, 400 space gameboard.