Blox is a new (2008) Kramer offering from Ravensburger. I showed up late to a gaming session and it was set up on the table when I got there, so we played a four player game of it. This “review” is based on that single game. The game is owned by a friend that tracks down German titles, especially SdJ nominees.

GAME COMPONENTS

The components have a definite retro look to them and include a four piece puzzle type board, several blocks of four different colors, a deck of cards, four markers and a wild card indicator for each player, a game phase indicator, rules and scoring chits.

The board assembles to show a nine by nine grid of four differently colored (black, red, gray and white) squares arranged in no particular pattern. There are small symbols where the boards meet to indicate which puzzle piece fits where. Some of the squares also have small squares printed in them to indicate the starting position and height of the intial towers.

The heavy plastic blocks are sized to completely cover the colored part of a board square and are used to form towers. The blocks come in the same four colors of the board. They interlock when stacked so the towers are stable. The decorative markings are subtle and not distracting.

The player pieces are the most retro looking. Picture a clear plastic cone meeting a much smaller opaque cone at the points. Other than some color issues (solved by playing mine upside down), they are perfectly functional, but look odd as a modern game component. Each player also gets a cardboard token with the player color on the back and showing the four block colors on the front.

The cards are smaller than standard playing cards (roughly Ticket to Ride size) have common backs and show a color on the front. That’s it, a rectangle of one of the colors with a small white border. They feel sturdy and long lasting.

The victory point chits are small enough that they can fit on a block and come in 1,2,3,4 and 10 denominations. The 10’s are slightly larger. These felt a little flimsy compared to the other components, but aren’t heavily used, so they should be fine for many plays.

The game phase indicator is a cardboard chart with a small piece to move along as the phases change. It is completely language independent and shows the possible actions in each of the four phases.

I didn’t see the rulebook, but our host was able to answer all questions quickly and definitively.

The box insert is detailed so that everything fits snugly in place.

GAMEPLAY

To prepare for the game, blocks are randomly drawn and placed on the indicated starting positions. At the start of the game, there is one four high tower, four three high towers and several each of two high and single block towers. Each tower starts with a VP chit on its top equal in value to the number of blocks in the tower. Each player is dealt five cards.

On a player’s turn, one action is taken and the player’s hand is refreshed to five cards. Actions are:
Move a piece onto the board,
Move an existing piece to another board location,
Remove a tower (and move the acting piece the former tower site),
Build a tower in current position (and remove the acting playing piece from the board),
Remove another player’s piece from the board and move the acting piece to its former location,
Or
Discard and/or reset one’s wild card marker

All of these actions involve playing card(s) and/or using a wild card marker. Moves are always orthogonal (not diagonal) and cannot go through towers or other playing pieces.

To move a piece from the stock onto the board, the player plays a color card and moves from the end of any row (or column) to the first space of that color. Moving an existing piece is similar; play a card and move to the first space (in any orthogonal direction) of that color.

To remove a tower, the player must play one matching card for each block in a tower that is either adjacent or has no squares that match any of the colors of the blocks in the tower. So if a player’s piece has a path consisting of black and grey squares to a tower with a red and white block in it, playing a red and white card will remove the tower and move the player’s piece to the spot where the blocks had been. These blocks are held in front of the player until used to build a tower and the VP chit on the tower is held by the player to score at the end. If a player has seven or more blocks already, this action is not available.

To build a tower, the player must play one card for each block of the new tower and have those blocks already (from previously removed towers). The new tower is placed on any of the player’s onboard pieces and the piece is removed from the board into stock. The player takes a VP chit equal to the number of blocks in the new tower and also places the same denomination chit on the new tower. New towers cannot be built so as to make it or any existing towers inaccessible.

If an opponent’s piece is orthogonal to a player’s piece with no intervening squares that match the color of the captured piece’s square, it can be captured by playing three or more cards that match the color of the square upon which the other player’s piece sits. The capturing player receives a VP for each card played in this manner and places his capturing piece on the square. The captured player’s piece is placed back into stock.

Each player has a wild card token that can be played at any time in place of a card. After it is used, it is flipped over and canot be used again until reset. A player can choose is to discard as many cards as desired and reset the wild card token.

During each phase of the game, only towers of a specific size can be constructed. Any tower smaller than this can be removed. In the first phase only size two towers can be built, so only size one towers can be removed. When there is only one size one tower left, the phase changes with the next player’s turn and only size three towers can be built, while size one and two can be removed. When only one size two tower is left, the third phase starts. In this only size four towers can be built while smaller ones can be removed. The last phase starts when only one size three tower is left. During the final phase only size five towers can be built and all others can be removed. Finally, when only one size four tower is left, the game ends when the last player takes a turn so that all players get an equal number of turns. It is possible that there would be no fourth phase if no one builds a size four tower in phase three.

Players add up their scoring chits and whoever has the most points wins the game.

IMPRESSIONS

I think it’s a fine family game. The rules are simple and feel consistent. The pieces are attractive both visually and tactilely.

There may be some that look at the game and think it’s going to be a less luck dependent game than it really is. My first impression when seeing it was “brainburner.” However, make no mistake, there is a lot of luck in this game. You can manage the luck a bit by placing pieces where more than one draw will help, but if you don’t get the cards that you need, it won’t help.

If you have three or more of a card color that you don’t need, capturing another player’s piece will flush three or more cards as well as scoring points and probably setting back that player’s plans. The downside is that you don’t reset your wild card.

Players have to balance points between tearing down towers and building towers because you can’t knock down a tower if you already have seven blocks. The only other way to get points is to remove opponent pieces.

It really does look like a game from the seventies and some of the concepts also feel like that. I’d forgotten it was a SdJ nominee and asked when it came out, expecting an answer of a few decades ago.

Specifically, needing a particular color card to act or move and having very little control over drawing what you need feels retro. Our explainer actually joked that movement was just like 2-D Candyland. This is balanced nicely with the discard and wild card feature so it didn’t feel too much like the game was playing me.

Lest these observations sound negative, let me say that I do look forward to trying this one again, it was fun and I don’t think luck is too dominant for a game of this type.

As I get more plays, I’ll come to update this review as appropriate.