Gaming Notes: Blokus #1

At a recent family gathering, I got to play Blokus with my mother, Mike (my brother-in-law), and my 2nd grade nephew, Caleb. This was the first time I had ever played.

Blokus board game

If you've never played, the object of the game is to put as many of your pieces on the board as possible. If you can block your opponent, all the better.

Caleb came out of the gate gunning for me pretty hard. But I soon discovered that it is actually quite difficult to block someone completely. I side-stepped his advance and headed toward Mike's territory. In the process, I spread myself across three quadrants of the board, giving myself a nice position for the endgame.

One by one my opponents could no longer play and were thus eliminated, leaving me as the final player. I had plenty of moves left but I fell one piece short of using all of my pieces.

My initial impression is that is game is a quick and dynamic abstract strategy game. Just the type I love! And the fact that I won didn't hurt either. =)