Well - a game that Santa brought - early as it happens - and we have had lots of time to play over the Christmas holidays. It has quickly become a family fave, as it is simple and good fun.
The game is a sort of 3D Tetris played against one another - a game for 2, 3 or 4 players.
In the box you get rules, four different coloured sets of wooden game pieces (Red, Green, Blue and Yellow) with a variety of different shapes, three double sided game boards (giving 6 game maps in total). The game pieces are wooden stained blocks, and will stand the test of time. The boards are average quality thick card - they might (eventually) wear out round the corners, but not for a long long time I think. The rules are simple, in multiple languages, and have some variant and optional rules within them. The box is solid and well constructed - although it uses an insert to keep the pieces from rattling around - the manufacturers could have made the box a lot smaller without any compromises. That said it is nicely illustrated with jungle scences, and enough award logos to launch your own logo museum!
The game play is simple block laying. The first player (which we chose at random) places a game piece. The second player must place their piece adjoining that one and so on for the first round. From the second round onwards when you are placing a game piece it must go face to face with one of your own pieces (it can be adjoining a horizontlal or vertical face). Aside from the rule that a piece cannot be place so that it goes over the permitted height (see next paragraph), or outside the boundaries of the building, the only rule is that you cannot place a block which would leave a hole underneath your block.
There are two sets of maps. The first set of maps are the simple ones - where there are different shaped buildings, and the maximum height depends on whether there are 2, 3 or 4 players. The other set of maps are for variable height buildings - a different challenge.
ame play takes around 10 - 15 minutes for a game from start to finish - a useful short game.
We've played a lot of game of this now, and it looks like it will be one that gets a lot of use.
