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Blokus
Blokus (/ˈblɒkəs/ BLOK-əs) is an abstract strategy board game for two to four players, where players try to score points by occupying most of the board with pieces of their color. The board is a square regular grid and the pieces are polyominoes. Blokus was designed by the French biophysicist Bernard Tavitian and first released in 2000 by Sekkoïa, a French company.
Blokus was the 2003 Australian Games Association Game of the Year, and won several other awards, including the 2002 Japan Boardgame Prize for the Best Japanese Game (i.e., published in japanese package and sold in Japan), the 2003 Mensa Select Award, the 2004 Major Fun Award, and the 2004 Teacher's Choice Award. In 2008, the game was sold to Mattel. Blokus has many board and video game spinoffs.
The game is played on a square board divided into 20 rows and 20 columns, for a total of 400 squares. There are a total of 84 game tiles, organized into 21 shapes in each of the four colors: blue, yellow, red, and green. The shapes are the 21 possible free polyominoes of one to five squares (one monomino, one domino, two trominoes/triominoes, five tetrominoes, and 12 pentominoes). The numbers of these shapes are the first in the A000105 sequence.
The standard rules of play for all variations of the game are as follows:
Once the game ends, each player counts every square of the piece(s) that they did not place on the board, each counting as a negative (−1) point (e.g., an unplayed tetromino is worth −4 points). A player who played all their pieces is awarded a 15-point bonus. If their last piece played was their monomino, provided that all their pieces have been played, the player is awarded an additional 5-point bonus. The player with the highest score wins.
Blokus rules also allow for two- and three-player games. In two-player games, each player takes two colors. In three-player games, either one of the players takes two colors or else "the pieces of the fourth color are placed on the board in a non-strategic way".
Sekkoïa and its distributors manufacture four additional variants of the game.
Blokus Duo is for two players only, and uses a smaller board (14 × 14); the pieces are opaque with black and white colors (originally translucent with purple and orange colors). The two starting squares are not placed in corners (as in the original Blokus game), but nearer the centre. This makes a crucial difference in the flavour of the game, because players' pieces may (and usually do) touch after the first "move". Even more than the original game, Blokus Duo is an offense-centred game; it is also considered a purer strategy game than the four-player version, since one can't be targeted by two or more players at once.
Hub AI
Blokus AI simulator
(@Blokus_simulator)
Blokus
Blokus (/ˈblɒkəs/ BLOK-əs) is an abstract strategy board game for two to four players, where players try to score points by occupying most of the board with pieces of their color. The board is a square regular grid and the pieces are polyominoes. Blokus was designed by the French biophysicist Bernard Tavitian and first released in 2000 by Sekkoïa, a French company.
Blokus was the 2003 Australian Games Association Game of the Year, and won several other awards, including the 2002 Japan Boardgame Prize for the Best Japanese Game (i.e., published in japanese package and sold in Japan), the 2003 Mensa Select Award, the 2004 Major Fun Award, and the 2004 Teacher's Choice Award. In 2008, the game was sold to Mattel. Blokus has many board and video game spinoffs.
The game is played on a square board divided into 20 rows and 20 columns, for a total of 400 squares. There are a total of 84 game tiles, organized into 21 shapes in each of the four colors: blue, yellow, red, and green. The shapes are the 21 possible free polyominoes of one to five squares (one monomino, one domino, two trominoes/triominoes, five tetrominoes, and 12 pentominoes). The numbers of these shapes are the first in the A000105 sequence.
The standard rules of play for all variations of the game are as follows:
Once the game ends, each player counts every square of the piece(s) that they did not place on the board, each counting as a negative (−1) point (e.g., an unplayed tetromino is worth −4 points). A player who played all their pieces is awarded a 15-point bonus. If their last piece played was their monomino, provided that all their pieces have been played, the player is awarded an additional 5-point bonus. The player with the highest score wins.
Blokus rules also allow for two- and three-player games. In two-player games, each player takes two colors. In three-player games, either one of the players takes two colors or else "the pieces of the fourth color are placed on the board in a non-strategic way".
Sekkoïa and its distributors manufacture four additional variants of the game.
Blokus Duo is for two players only, and uses a smaller board (14 × 14); the pieces are opaque with black and white colors (originally translucent with purple and orange colors). The two starting squares are not placed in corners (as in the original Blokus game), but nearer the centre. This makes a crucial difference in the flavour of the game, because players' pieces may (and usually do) touch after the first "move". Even more than the original game, Blokus Duo is an offense-centred game; it is also considered a purer strategy game than the four-player version, since one can't be targeted by two or more players at once.