After the spokesman for Microsoft irritated the crap out of me on Thursday (to paraphrase, “If you want to play on an offline XBox One, play an Xbox 360.” Oh, good, then there’s no reason to buy a new console. Thanks for saving me money, Microsoft!), I considered making today a huge rant about why I will not be purchasing an XBox One. But this guy summed it up so well, I don’t feel the need to do that.
So instead, I decided to get a little zen with our new board game, Tsuro!
Tsuro actually reminds me of Carcassonne, except much simpler. You are a dragon and you are flying across the sky (I think). Your goal is to move across the board without falling off. Whoever is left standing at the end wins. Let’s begin!
The Rules:
The rules are simple. You start with your dragon at any marking on the board.
Those little light lines that are intersecting with the grey board are the lines you start with. Just set your marker there.
These are your dragon markers.
Every person starts with three tiles. You can look at your tiles, but keep them a secret from everyone else. (Actually, keeping them a secret isn’t a huge necessity. It doesn’t seem to matter when we show our cards to each other.)
Each turn, you lay down a tile, follow the path connecting to the path you chose, and then draw another tile. You are not allowed to lay down a tile that will cause you to fall off the board unless its the only move you can make.
And that’s it. Seriously.
The Game:
Figuring out where to lay down tiles is pretty easy, because you can only lay them down inside those grey lines.
There are just enough tiles to fit on the entire board. Which means that, at some point, you’re going to run out of tiles to draw (you’re supposed to have three in your hand through the whole game, unless there are no more tiles).
So when you run out of tiles, the person who draws gets the dragon card.
Having this card means that when the first person falls off the board (which will happen), their cards go into the draw deck, and the person holding the dragon card gets to draw a card first. Even if it’s not their turn.
While playing, if your path connects with someone else’s path in a way that causes your pieces to meet, you crash into each other and both of you fall out of the sky (off the board).
The last person standing wins.
That’s it. That’s the whole game.
Anything Else?:
This game is beautiful, simple, and fun. It’s absolutely perfect if you’re a beginner or just don’t play a lot of board games. And still perfect if you love board games and just want something quick and easy. Even the clean up is easy. And who doesn’t like an easy clean up?
I’ve never played a competitive game that was so relaxing. We have a house rule to make it more relaxing: you have to listen to the soundtrack to Okami while playing this game. 😀
Zach and I first discovered this game through TableTop, which is where we discover most games. If you want to actually watch someone play the game, TableTop is perfect.