If you just took a quick glance at Qwirkle, you might think it was a simple game of color and shape matching. Kids’ stuff, right? Well, you’d be wrong. Yes, Qwirkle involves matching colors and shapes, but one play will convince you that while it’s accessible for kids, it’s also a game of strategy and fun for adults. It’s the 2007 winner of the Mensa Select award, and the recipient of a Parents’ Choice award. Our family gives it our personal thumbs-up as well.

One part Scrabble, one part dominoes, and one part something else entirely, Qwirkle is a game for 2-4 players, age 6 and up. One game lasts about 45 minutes, and it’s easy to learn, teach, and play.

In a nutshell: Qwirkle consists of 108 square, black, wooden tiles. You’ll also need paper and a pen to keep score.

Each tile has a symbol on one side. There are six different symbols (circle, square, clover, diamond, and 2 different stars) that come in six different colors (red, yellow, orange, green blue, and purple). Altogether, the game has 3 copies of each of the 36 specific symbols — e.g. 3 red circles, 3 red squares, 3 yellow diamonds, etc.

Players start by drawing a “hand” of six tiles, which they keep hidden from other players. The rest of the tiles are placed to the side of the playing area and are used as the draw pile. The player who has the most tiles that share a single attribute (color or symbol) goes first, by laying those tiles on the table in a straight line. One caveat: players may not count duplicate tiles (for example, if you have 3 circles, and two of them are orange, you can only count one of those orange circles toward your “most tiles that share a single attribute”).

Example:

Jim and Ann have just started a game of Qwirkle. Jim has 4 red symbols — a square, a diamond, and two circles. Because the second red circle doesn’t count, Jim could play 3 tiles. Ann has 4 diamonds – a green one, yellow one, red one, and blue one. Because Ann can count all four of these, she has the most and will go first by placing her diamonds on the table in a line.

Play now continues around the table, with each player laying down one or more of his tiles in a line, building off the existing tile structure. I know this sounds confusing, so just think of Scrabble. In Scrabble, you build words by laying down one or more of your letters in a single line, building off the existing word structure. Qwirkle works just like that.

But since we’re not building words in Qwirkle, how do you choose which tiles to lay and how to lay them?

In Qwirkle, all the tiles in a single line must share one (and only one) attribute — either a color or a symbol. In addition, there cannot be any duplicate tiles in any line.

Examples of possible lines:

• A line containing only red tiles (but a variety of symbols, keeping in mind the no-duplicates rule)
• A line containing only green tiles
• A line containing only squares (but a variety of colors, keeping in mind the no-duplicates rule)
• A line containing only circles
• Etc.

On your turn, you may add to an existing line or create a new line (as long as it attaches to the existing tiles in some way).

Okay, I think we need a visual here. Let’s say that the board looks like this:

Note that line 1 (horizontal) consists of all blue symbols. Line 2 (vertical) consists of all circles. Line 3 (horizontal) consists of all orange symbols. Etc.

Now, let’s say that Jim’s hand looks like this:

Jim has several options. He could add the yellow 4-pointed star and the yellow circle to Line 8 (vertical); however he could not add the yellow diamond, since Line 8 already has a yellow diamond. Alternatively, he could add the blue square to the front of Line 1 OR to Line 7 (along with the orange square, if he wishes).

Here’s another move he could make: Do you see that yellow square in Line 5 (vertical)? He could take his three yellow tiles and build them all out to the left of that square, creating a new line in which all tiles are yellow. He would have to place the 4-pointed star under the green 4-pointed star, in order to match up the symbols, but he’ll score for that new mini-line as well.

Scoring is usually the biggest factor in determining which option to go with. Scoring is simple: you score one point for each tile in the line(s) you create or add to. Again, think Scrabble. In Scrabble, if the word “ton” was on the board and you turned it into “stone,” you would score for the entire word “stone,” not just the letters you added. In Qwirkle, if you add 2 red symbols to a line that already contains 3 red symbols, you would score 5 points. In addition, if the tiles you lay happen to also land in such a way that they add on to other existing lines, you score points for those lines as well. To beat a dead horse, think Scrabble once again. If you turned “ton” into “stone” and the “s” also happened to make a vertical word above it go from “mark” to “marks,” you would score for both “stone” and “marks.”

One more scoring rule: If you happen to “complete” a row, you score an extra 6 points for that turn. An example of “completing a row” would be if there is an existing row containing a green square, a red square, a blue square and a yellow square, and you are able to add the orange and purple squares to it. Remember, because there can be no duplicates, once you have all the symbols of one color, or all the colors of one symbol, that line cannot be made any longer.

Make sense? I hope so. As I’m writing this, I realize it sounds involved, but I promise — after two or three turns, it all falls into place and you can start working on your beat-everyone have-fun-with-your-family strategy.

Each player ends his or her turn by drawing enough tiles from the draw pile to bring their hand back up to six tiles.

Keep track of each player’s score for each turn, adding as you go along (again, just like Scrab well, you know). The game ends when the final tile is played, and the player with the highest score wins.

Qwirkle has been hit at our house. C. picked up on it immediately, and Chad and I en
joy playing with him, or just the two of us. C. prefers to play without keeping score — just seeing what kind of rows and combinations he can make. The game is flexible enough for the three of us to play, with just Chad and I keeping score (because we both like to win evaluate our skills) and letting C. play “just for fun.”

In summary:

Qwirkle

Number of Players: 2-4
Time required: 45 minutes
Ages: 6 and up
Where to buy: Time Well Spent or Mindware, and you might also stumble across it at some specialty toy/game stores. In Canada, you can find Qwirkle at Fun Games Cafe.

Callapidder recommends it: For any families or friends. Qwirkle makes a great after-dinner play-and-chat kind of game. I also think it will appeal to Scrabble-lovers who are looking for something a little different.

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