Blokus
| Blokus | |
|---|---|
 Blokus - section of the game board |
|
| Game data | |
| author | Bernard Tavitian |
| publishing company |
Sekkoia (2000), Heidelberger Spieleverlag , Winning Moves (2005), Mattel (2009) a. a. |
| Publishing year | 2000, 2005, 2009 |
| Art | Placement game |
| Teammates | 2 to 4 |
| Duration | 20-30 minutes |
| Age | from 8 years
|
| Awards | |
|
Super As d'Or 2001 |
|
Blokus is a strategic board game for two to four players invented by Bernard Tavitian . It is a placement game that is similar to the pentamino game .
Over three million games have now been sold worldwide.
history
Blokus was invented in 1990 by the French Bernard Tavitian while he was working at Yale University in the United States . When Pierre-Jacques Jouars saw the game in 1999, he secured the rights and founded the company Sekkoia to distribute the game. The game was released by Sekkoia on the French market in 2000, where it was sold 6000 times in the first year and 20,000 times in the second year. In 2001 it received the Super As d'Or . In Germany it was from Flight Games marketed and where the game of the year - list included of 2002.
Blokus is now licensed by various publishers and distributed in 35 countries and is one of the most award-winning board games. In Germany, Blokus was distributed by Winning Moves from 2005 to 2008 . The American toy company Mattel , which took over the French publisher Sekkoia, has been selling the game since 2009 .
In 2005 Blokus Duo was released for two players and in 2006 Blokus Trigon with pieces made from assembled triangles. Building on Blokus also developed Stefan Kögl a version with three-dimensional stones called Rumi's , published in 2003, and also the game of the year - selection list has been added; the game was later distributed under the title Blokus-3D .
Championships
There are now over 740 players in the world rankings. The unofficial world champion is the Canadian Timothee, but there are also very strong players in Germany. In comparison to other abstract strategy games, it is striking that about as many women as men play blokus.
In 2008 a Blokus championship took place in Germany.
Rules of the game
In the two-person game, each player has two sets of 21 game pieces ( polyominos ), which are made up of small squares. One player has blue and red stones, the other yellow and green. Each shape, which consists of 1–5 squares, appears exactly once in each color: ie 1 square, 1 domino, 2 triominos, 5 quadraminos and 12 pentominos. The board consists of 20 × 20 square recesses into which the game pieces fit exactly.
The pieces are placed alternately in turns, starting in the corners. The order is clockwise: blue - yellow - red - green. The first stone of each color must be placed in such a way that the corner space is occupied. Stones of one color must always touch each other across corners, but never along one side. On the other hand, you can lay on other stones as you like.
It is drawn until no more stones can be placed.
The aim is to place as many pieces as possible on the board. Since the playing field only offers enough space for all the stones, the spaces quickly become narrow. Whoever has the fewest points left at the end wins. Each small square on your own piece counts as one point.
Blokus can also be played by three or four people. A team variant is also provided for the four-player game.
Awards
According to the publisher Sekkoia, Blokus is the most awarded game of the 21st century with 26 awards.
Quote
The French newspaper Liberation: “ Blokus has really succeeded in settling between Tetris that you can't get out of your head and the subtle art of Go . It has a deserved success! "
Web links
- blokus.com Official website of Sekkoia
- Blokus in the Luding games database
- Blokus in the game database BoardGameGeek (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Awards ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at blokus.com (English)
- ↑ Presentation ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at blokus.com (English)
- ↑ a b About us ( Memento from August 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) at blokus.com (English)
- ↑ Winning Moves press kit ( memento of the original from March 29, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 416 kB) from February 5, 2009
