Wednesday 27 March 2013

Board games- Blokus

Photo credit: Google
 
Do you play board games?

I remember my childhood filled with board games! I always receive them for Christmas presents from my Uncles and Aunties. I was given Monopoly, UNO, Snakes & Ladders, Ludo, Scrabbles etc. I was very blessed indeed! For this reason, i am thankful i have another sibling who was always as eager as me to play!

As sonshine grew older, we introduced board and card games to him. He loves them all! We started with the simple UNO, then Snakes & Ladders, Monopoly and now Blokus. This is a fairly new board game to me, as in i don't think it ever existed during my childhood.

How to play?

Each piece comes in a tetris like shape. Some are shaped like a square (made up of 4 units), some 'L' (made up of 3/4 or 5 units) etc. Each player picks a color and connect their own color piece on the main board corner to corner. Each piece can only be joint at its corners but not anywhere else (side by side, top-bottom etc). The player who has the least number of pieces left is the winner.

This is a strategy game and requires some thinking. You not only need to find a space to joint your pieces at the corners but also strategically placed them such that you block your opponent. The idea here is to take up as much as space on the board as possible.

Sonshine loves this games to pieces (pun intended)! He plays this with daddy every night and takes each game very seriously. He gets very upset if he doesn't trash his fiercest competitor- his father.

Sonshine's best score was 3- which was really quite amazing for a 5 year old. I can't even beat him (my average score is 15-20, i know i am very bad). Only daddy can play with him head on (though daddy is already whining that it is very difficult to win sonshine these days). It is very interesting to watch him play, because he appears to place each piece down randomly & without a thought. But in reality, he has already mapped out his strategy as you make your move. Quite a scary opponent he is, if you ask me.

So, if you are looking for a strategy game but not too taxing on the brain, then Blokus is a must try! I recommend it to kids from 5 years and above.
 

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