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Andrew Butler
Australia
Hawker
ACT
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Pentago
Played 6/2/12
The next game after playing the warm up game of Toc Toc Woodman was Pentago. This was another of my bargains from Cancon. $10 from the second hand stall, so very happy with that, as its been one I've been wanting to buy for a long time. I play it a fair bit on the iPad, but nothing beats a physical copy I can hold.
Components/Quality
I'm not sure if the version I bought is a travel version or a (big) pocket version or something? It seems to be a little bit smaller than I seem to remember it being when I saw it in the shops. Or maybe my eyes have just gotten bigger perhaps so it seems smaller  .
I really love how the board is put together. It looks so smooth when you slide the quadrant out, rotate it and return it. Its such a clever design and really makes the game. Its fairly sturdy white plastic, so its not going to get broken if the kids play with it. It came with a bunch of nice heavy marbles in black and white, again maybe not as large as I would have liked/remembered, but they got the job done.
Rules
The rules were well laid out and straight forward. Place one of you marbles anywhere on the 6 x 6 grid (made up of 4 quadrants each with 3 x 3 places), rotate any quad, not just the one containing your recently placed marble 90 degrees clockwise or counter clockwise. The first person to get 5 in a row is the winner. Nice and simple with no ambiguity. I like it 
Game Play
Time on the box was 5 minutes. We played 3 games of this in about 10 minutes, if that. You have to be able to visualise where the marbles are going to end up once you turn them to be able to play well. There was one instance where Andrea was able to build a diagonal row across the board, and I couldn't for the life of me see it as it wasn't the conventional straight across the middle line that I was expecting. There is a nice amount of strategy in trying to play marbles so as not to get noticed while you build the line across the board. Something that I haven't perfected in doing yet BTW
Downtime
Like Toc Toc Woodman, the game moves so quickly that time between turns is minimal. I found that it was almost quicker to play against a person than it is to play against the AI on the iPad.
Would I play it again?
Of course. (really this is a silly question, as I would play almost any game, even those that I loath, if it means the difference between game and no game). This was on my radar for a long time, and now that I have it I plan on bringing it out when ever there is a quick few moments for a game.
Rating out of 10
I think i'm sounding abit like a broken record now, but I would have to give it a 7 out of 10 for being a fun little 2 player game.
Where would I place this against the other games that I've played (currently only ones I've reported on?)
I think I like it more than Toc Toc Woodman, but would have to place it under Space Maze just because of the lightness of it compared to Space Maze.
Current Order
Thunderstone: Dragonspire
Space Maze
Pentago
Toc Toc Woodman
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