Game: Quads

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Toynan — 2007-11-11T14:24:59+00:00

Thread: Re: Does this suffer from an automatic win strategy?

drunkenKOALA — 2007-10-21T04:05:16+00:00

It's not that hard to prevent the opponent from playing symmetrically. If there is a symmetrical pattern, just play in a space that is on the line of symmetry. If none of the spaces on the line of symmetry are playable, then yeah. But as the first player, you can and should make it so that they are playable if the second player mirrored your moves.

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Meat — 2007-10-09T05:48:22+00:00

Box Back - 1996 version

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Meat — 2007-10-09T05:45:15+00:00

Box Front - 1996 version

Thread: Does this suffer from an automatic win strategy?

Moon Knight — 2007-09-02T22:10:30+00:00

We picked this up at a thrift store today. My son and I enjoy many of the Gigamic games. We were loving this one for the first 7 games or so, than my son tried the mirror the other person's move strategy, playing the exact same tile I did, in a symetrical pattern. This means he wins every time.

I could find no answer to this, there being no way to "curve" the board so that he couldn't make a mirrored play.

Others agree or disagree with this?

I suppose it could be salvaged by saying you can't mirror the other players first move, but I haven't seen anyone else mention this flaw.

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drunkenKOALA — 2007-08-19T11:16:47+00:00

solution to the single-player puzzle

Thread: Re: a portrait of the koala as a ...

drunkenKOALA — 2007-08-01T09:47:49+00:00

Glad you liked the game. You may want to try out Pylos, another light, abstract strategy game.

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Terraliptar — 2007-07-28T21:34:56+00:00

Detail shot

Thread: Re: a portrait of the koala as a ...

FranklinT — 2007-04-12T02:06:34+00:00

Thumbs up for this very fun review, and for this nearly undiscovered gem of a game! I would have never given this game a second look, I'm ashamed to admit, if I didn't pick it up at a thrift store. I just tried it yesterday (2 games), and I really enjoyed it. There is something about the strategy used in this game that just feels fun to me. This game should be in every collection based on the fact that it's a very satisfying 10-15 minutes of strategy that doesn't hurt your head. Heck, I almost never plan more than one or two moves ahead even in abstract strategy games. In this game I could see how many legal moves I and my oponent had left, and what I should do to eliminate one of his moves. All that and I had just picked up the game for the first time 15 minutes ago!

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Ceryon — 2006-12-28T23:17:59+00:00

Thread: a portrait of the koala as a ...

drunkenKOALA — 2006-09-04T19:09:23+00:00

...LACONIC REVIEWER
Quads is a perfect information game played by 2 players. An average game lasts around 20 minutes for me, but this could be shorter/longer depending on how serious the players are.

The designer is Kris Burm, the author of the GIPF series. The simplicity, depth, and elegance of Quads rival those of the GIPF games.

...LICENSED LAWYER
The game is played with 36 square tiles on a 6x6 board. Each square is divided into 4 sides, with each side having one of the following patterns: players´ color (white or black), lines parallel to the edge, lines orthogonal to the edge. Each player has 17 squares, all of which has at least one side with his color (black or white), and none with his opponent´s color. In addition there are 2 opening squares with lines on all of its 4 sides.

Game starts with each player placing one of the opening squares. After that players alternate in placing their squares until one player is unable to do so. There are only two rules to placing squares. One, you must place it adjacent to square/s already on the board. Two, all the sides that are touching between two squares must have the same pattern. (think Carcassone.) The player to place the last square tile wins.

advanced rule
The board has lines on its edges. Tiles placed adjacent to the edge must also have its side touching the edge match the pattern of the lines.

detailed description of pieces
Of the 17 player´s pieces: 2 have player color on 3 sides, 3 have player color on 2 opposite sides, 4 have player color on 2 adjacent sides, 8 have player color on 1 side. There are no two pieces that are identical. In fact all permutations of possible squares appears once.

...AVID GAMER
The idea is to claim more territory than your opponent. The more territory you have, the longer you can last without running out of playable spaces. Whoever runs out of playable spaces first loses. Note a space can be claimed by both players and become unplayable to both.

Like in Go, you have to give up some territory to your opponent. Knowing when and where to claim is key, because you can´t aggresively go after them all without suffering repercussions. Of course that is easier said than done. The delicate balance between sacrificing and claiming territory makes Quads a fairly deep game. Each turn is filled with interesting, dynamic choices. Should I claim this area now? or that area over there? or should I play passively this turn and wait for a better opportunity to attack? will that better opportunity come? how should I play this turn to make sure that that better opportunity does come? etc.

One downside to the gameplay is that line-pattern blocking can be more luck-dependent than it is a result of well planned and executed strategies. But if one´s color-blocking strategy is superior to his opponent´s, he will still win most of the time despite the unpredictable nature of the line-pattern blocks.

...MATH PROFESSOR
When you place a square touching an empty space with a lined pattern, and the empty space is untouched on its other 3 sides, you are OPENING UP A SPACE for both you and your opponent to play.

When you place a square touching an empty space with your color, you are CLAIMING the empty space using a COLOR BLOCK.

When you place a square touching an empty space with a lined pattern, and the opponent has no remaining tiles that can match that lined pattern and other pattern/s also touching that space, you are CLAIMING the empty space using a LINE-PATTERN BLOCK. You may also be blocking yourself with this move but usually it doesn´t matter because the space is already color blocked by the opponent anyways.

where to play
Generally, you want to place in a space that is open to both players for two reasons. One, you take away a playable space from your opponent. Two, if you play in a space that you already claimed, you have to use at least one of your color sides as connections to played piece/s, when you could be using that side to block adjacent empty space/s.

when and where to block
When possible, use line-pattern block instead of color-block. This will allow you to save your colored sides to block elsewhere later.

Because you´d rather have your opponent place in a space that he already claimed instead of one open to both (read above), it´s better to claim/block the latter than the former.

Don´t re-claim a space that you´ve already claimed for two reasons. One, you are wasting a side of your color that can be used to claim other spaces. Two, it´s harder for you to place in a space that is touched on two or three sides by your color, forcing you to waste more side/s of your color.

Do not end your turn with 1 open space left on the board. If you do, your opponent can place there and end his turn with 0 open space, thus forcing you to play in one of your claimed spaces.

In short, you want to be as efficient as possible when blocking.

managing your colors
I find it better to save your more powerful pieces (pieces with more sides of your color) for later, because if you claim too many spaces early on, you´ll end up having to place in those spaces and opening up lots of spaces, which you´ll have trouble claiming later on. On the other hand, if you save too much of them for later, you might never get the chance to use them all. You have to find the right balance.

It is not necessarily better to play the square with 3 sides of your color on your first move. I like to start with a square with only 1 side of my color. Even though I am opening up 2 spaces, it really doesn´t hurt because so early in the game, any territory I claim will be hard to keep anyways.

managing your lines
Always keep the lines of your reservoir squares as versatile as possible. Place all 8 squares with 1 side of your color color-side up. Try to keep it so that you have half the squares with orthogonal lines on its left side, and the other half with parallel lines on its left side. The same goes for the other 2 sides. For the 3 squares with your color on opposite sides, save the one with parallel lines on one side and orthogonal lines on the other side for last, if possible. This is to avoid getting blocked by line patterns.

player advantage
A neat thing in Quads, is that it´s not obvious which player has the advantage. The first player gets to take action first, so that´s a bonus. But he also has to play one extra tile to win the game. If both players play the same number of tiles, second player wins because he placed last.

...COFFEE TABLE DECORATOR
I have the Gigamic, plastic version. It is of decent quality, and very modern art-like. Verdict: coffee table quality.

...UNSOCIABLE MISANTHROPE
Quads can be played as a solitaire. You play both black and white, and with the advanced rule. The goal is to play all 36 pieces.

...QUIRKY MARSUPIAL
At my level of play, the advanced rule introduces more randomness than depth of gameplay. Because, as mentioned above, line-pattern blocking tend to be more random than planned. I find it better to play without the advanced rule.

Make all information open. Don´t hide your reservoir tiles from your opponent. It just makes both of your lives harder because he can just count what is already on the board to get the information he wants anyways.

Thread: Re: User Review

drunkenKOALA — 2006-07-23T10:11:29+00:00

This game is very underrated in my opinion.

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GeoMan — 2006-03-14T18:58:06+00:00

Wooden edition

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GeoMan — 2006-03-14T18:54:55+00:00

Box back

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snicholson — 2004-10-24T17:43:31+00:00

Thread: User Review

mrraow — 2004-07-21T19:21:04+00:00

Quads is a rather unusual territorial game. One player plays black, the other white. Each player has a set of square plastic tiles divided diagonally into 4 triangles, like so:

+-----+ | /| | / | | X | | / | |/ | +-----+

Each triangle can be either a block of their colour, or contain a set of parallel lines (in a neutral colour), running either towards the centre of the square, or parallel to the sides.

At the start of the game, each player places one of their pieces anywhere on the board. After that, players take turns to place a piece adjacent to a piece in play, and all adjacent edges of tiles must match. Play is complicated slightly because the sides of the board are also patterned, with lines parallel to the sides, and players must match these patterns as well as the ones on the tiles. The objective is to be the last player to play a tile.

After a few games, I can see this is a deep game, with the main objective being to wall off areas of the board so that only you can play in them, but I must confess to being somewhat at a loss at present about the best way to achieve this!

There are clear parallels to Tashkent Domino, also by Kris Burm, but that's smaller, faster, and easier to analyse. If you like one, odds are that you'll like them both.

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darquil — 2004-04-12T21:44:38+00:00