Game of the Week: 'Qwirkle'

We believe that few things are as enjoyable as sitting around the living room floor, playing a game with your family. Each week, in the ‘Game of the Week’ column, GeekDad will suggest a fun, family-friendly game everyone can enjoy while spending time with each other. Here’s this week’s pick:

Qwirkle Board Game

I get a lot of grief at my house for having nothing but dragons and aliens in my board games. Qwirkle is the game that I break out when we all want to play something together that doesn’t involve slaying something or defeating supervillains. There’s no board, so you can play anywhere you have a flat surface. Everyone starts game with six blocks. There are six different shapes and six different colors. Each player places blocks of a single matching color or shape, but not both, in a line. Then the next person goes and has to match, without duplicating, either the color or shape of the previous block. You try to make the best point combo each round with the tiles you have. Think, Scrabble, if there were no words involved. As simple as it sounds, there’s a surprising amount of strategy that works its way in as you try to anticipate moves and capitalize on beneficial tiles. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t at least one table flip moment in our house when someone’s move was blocked…again. It’s easy to teach, extremely accessible, and always a hit.