Tsuro (from the Japanese word tsūro meaning “route”) is a seemingly straight forward light strategy game for 2 to 8 players.
Players begin the game on the edge of the board (a 6×6 grid), place a jumbled route tile from their hand (of 3) and move their piece along the route, before replenishing their hand with a new route tile from the deck.
Players begin the game on the edge of the board (a 6×6 grid), place a jumbled route tile from their hand (of 3) and move their piece along the route, before replenishing their hand with a new route tile from the deck.
all in a tanglePlay continues in this manner with routes building up, involuntarily connecting, and becoming increasingly difficult to visually untangle, with players eliminated by either crashing into each other or routed off the board edge until one player remains.
board game sumoA sort of more visually pleasing board game sumo, Tsuro marries beautiful rules simplicity with visual puzzle elements to create a fun, strategy-light, abstract board game.
It’s quick to play too – with swift setup, straight forward rules, and an average game length of about 15-20 minutes.
When more players are playing – the strategy of trying to force your fellow players into each other or off the board edge quickly gets stressful as you try to visually unravel the routes and plan ahead.
Kids, including younger ones will quickly get to grips with the simple rules (publisher states 8+ but I think mature 6+ could easily handle this), but be warned once you’re knocked out you’re left to watch and wait for a victor to be declared (probably only minutes away) but this does mean you can focus on grazing on the assembled snacks (every cloud…).
Brief as it is, this waiting around may not be for everyone (I’m thinking impatient, competitive little ones – or Dads for that matter!), although, there are five other free online rules variations available (see link below) that subtly change the challenge of the vanilla rules – work together to keep all the pieces on the board, longest path travelled, and more.
Moderate
2-8
15-20 mins
Easy
Why buy?
Fantastically simple, beautifully executed, light strategy game for all ages that holds up to multiple replays. Spaghetti never looked this good! (er..noodles would probably have been thematically stronger)
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