Pyramid Review
Ingenious
Published by Fantasy Flight Games
Designed by Reiner Knizia
Graphics by Kinetics & Binney Hare
Mounted fold-out board, four score tracks, 24 wooden scoring blocks in six colors, 120 tiles, cloth sack, four racks, & rules sheet, full color, $34.95
Ingenious may not be the cleverest game to come down the pike, and its mechanics probably aren't groundbreaking, but it is another example of how the right product at the right time will strike folks just so.
The object of the game is to hold the best score at the end of the game.
The board is a grid of hexagons, with six starting spaces marked by six symbols that permeate the whole game. These read like a bowl of Lucky Charms cereal: red asterisk, yellow sun, purple ring . . . Everyone starts with a rack and six tiles (kind of like Scrabble); the plastic playing pieces are a pair of hexes connected along one side, also with game symbols. Some double up on the symbol they use, while others pair up different symbols (kind of like a selection of dominoes).
You want to match icons on the board to form a line of like symbols. For example, if there is a row of three adjacent green circle symbols and you place a tile with a green circle next to them, forming a straight line, you get three green points. If there are green circles next to your tile in other directions you count those too, so after a few plays there are enough tiles to give you some big numbers. Since you have two symbols . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: September 2, 2005
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