The kids received an unexpected Christmas gift from some friends - Quirkle. They rave about this game and so we were eager to try it out.
Quirkle is easy to learn but hard to master. I messed up when I first read the rules by leaving out a key point: lines cannot have the same shape twice (if it's a colour line) or the same colour twice (if it's a shape line). We had to re-start. My son agreed to play (to our delight and surprise). He wasn't pleased that he had to keep track of his score on paper - too much math, I guess.
Here are some photos and a description of the game play.
The top picture is one of the first photos taken of the game. The object is to score the most points. If you get six squares in a row, it's a Quirkle and the player that achieves it gets six bonus points. We started to get the hang of the practice and you can see five Quirkles here already.
In this second shot, you can see my daughter writing her score down. There are three shapes with the same colour (e.g. three green circles) so near the end of the game players must place their items strategically.
These last two shots show the final display and my daughter's calculations. I won with a score of 116 and my girl came in second place. It was a fun game. I doubt we'll convince my boy to play again (not his style) but we can try with other groups.