MindWare Qwirkle Board Game

A fun game that looks simple, but can get pretty strategic if played by adults. I recommend it for over 10-12 year olds. The younger children quickly got bored even though, at first, they enjoyed it. The 4 year old loved showing off his math skills as we added our scores, but got bored after several turns. One 10 year old found it not exciting, but the 12 year old showed great strategy and it kept her interest. Great for adults. The wood tiles are blocky and feel good to handle. The enamel finish is nice, but we have an issue with the colors. Although the colors look vivid in the pictures, the colors on black background can be hard to see in artificial lighting. White background would be much easier on the eyes, even for normally sighted individuals. My husband has red/green colorblindness and cannot tell the colors. The blue and purple look exactly alike to him. I had to take a permanent marker and write the first letter of each color in the center of each tile. It would be nice if the company would modify this to have a white background and make the colors more vivid, such as more difference between orange and red and between blue and purple.

This game was a gift for my granddaughter and her family. We played my game when she was visiting and she liked it so much that she wanted one for her family.

Love this game. Easy to learn and lots of fun!

Purchased this for my 6 year old grandson. There are lots of smaller wooden tiles, but a nice quality cloth bag is included to hold the tiles. The scoring is a bit complicated so for younger children, an adult will need to help. Overall I would recommend this game. It is good quality and fun to play.

Have had this game several years and recommended it to friends. Straightforward rules to the game, but a lot of different strategies possible, kind of like rummycubes, but more challenging. There are 3 sets of six different shapes in six different colors. Each turn, players add their tile(s) to ones already in play either by matching all one color or all one shape, with no repeats in any continuous row or column. Points are added for the total number of tiles in rows and the total number of tiles in columns that are increased by the new tile(s), which must all be added to the same continuous row or column. Extra points for getting a quirkle, or a complete row or column with either all six shapes in one color or all six colors of one shape. You want to get a quirkle without giving your opponents an easy chance at one by creating a row or column of 5 tiles. Great way to reinforce addition skills for younger players. Players maintain 6 (I believe) tiles in their hand by drawing to replace however many they were able to play in the same row or column. Extra points for being first to get rid of all your tiles when there are no more left to draw. Game play can be quickened with a timer, for those players who would otherwise be tempted to calculate the point total for every possible play in their hand. Ahem. The only aspect of the game that I took off a star was the quality of the wood blocks could be more consistent. Some blocks had splinters come off when they were cut apart, leaving a crack or gouge. They were all painted over, so no safety issue or anything, but the quality could be a little better. I still highly recommend this game.

I love this game and it is partly a tactile thing. I love the tiles are made of wood and not plastic. Other than that the game is seemingly easy but there is definitely strategy involved. Fun, fun, fun!

I was trying to find a game to play with a client who has dementia and ran across this in an article. After I bought it I tested it out with my kids (25, 24, 19 and 11) and myself (47). We had so much fun!! It is one of those games that can be played at different levels. We started getting quite inventive on where and when to play to maximize our points and block our opponents. I then played with my client. She and I did not keep score. We just made the chains with either shapes or colors and added wherever she first recognized a play. No trying to strategize where to build for future etc. We also played with both of our tiles up so we could talk about the best places to play. She likes this game and actually remembers having played before and wants to play again. The rules have to be re-learned but the fun remains. For one more note, we had a group of my daughters friends over and four of us played Quirkle. They were all 19 - 22. That got pretty cutthroat <lol> They all want to play again. I HIGHLY recommend this game. I think Im going to buy a 2nd one so more than 4 can play together (We played with 5 first night and it does work too).

Gift

Im on sort of a game kick these days. I have three kids, ages 6, 5, and 3. I bought this game as a family present from Santa this past Christmas. This game is for really anyone. Its a cross between scrabble, dominos, and rummy kub. It has colorful wooden tiles and a draw bag comes in the box. The box is really nice. The game was Germany Spiel des Jahres a couple years back, which is saying something, since achieving that rank is sort of a worldwide recognition. This game is light, easily played, and easily scored. But it still takes some strategy and brain useage. My 6-yo gets it. My 5-yo will get it soon; she usually plays on my wifes team. My 3-yo wont get it for a while, but he likes to build things with my tiles while Im playing. We put the kids to bed and me and my wife played alone. I bought this game for my mother-in-law too, and she was way excited. This same company makes another game we bought called Q-Bits. My 5-yo and 6-yo get that game, it also is a high quality wooden game, and its also a thinking game. I have to say BIG thumbs up on Santa. My only recommendation...I bought my wife a waffle iron too. So now I have waffles and we play this. A mans gotta eat, ya know?

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