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Designer: Gordon, Jordan & Fraser-Dackers
Publisher: Jumbo/Educational Insights
Year Published: 1992/2006
Price: $24.99
Playing Time: 45 minutes
Number of Players: 2 3 4
Age Range: Teen Family 8-up
Game Type: Abstract

Abstract games seem to fall into two broad categories: black-and-white, and vibrant as a peacock that lost a fight with a paint factory. The monochromatic abstracts are almost invariably deep and thoughtful games requiring you to carefully evaluate each move for the long term ramifications or else risk losing in the early game without even realizing it.

The multi-color abstracts can’t be classified so easily. Some fall into the thinky end of the pool, while others tromp through the wading section or else sunbathe on the side of the pool, not even deigning to wet their feet.

Spectrangle, a glowingly bright abstract game in a difficult-to-shelve oversized triangular box, occupies the wading section in our pool of abstract games. Game play is as simple as you might expect from any well-designed abstract: Each player starts with a hand of four colored triangular pieces. The pieces vary from having three colors, with one color on each side, to monochrome. The fewer colors on a piece—or “trang” as the rules specify—the more valuable it is; solid-colored pieces are worth 6 points, while three-color pieces are worth only 1 or 2. Five colors are used in the game, which also includes a single all-white piece.

The board, as you might expect, is triangular with as many indentations as pieces in the game. While most of the indentations are hollow, some include a number from 2-4, which is a bonus multiplier that players can receive during the game.

For the first turn, a randomly chosen start player places one of her pieces in any non-bonus space on the board, then draws a new tile. From then on, each player places a piece on the board adjacent to any previously played piece, with the caveat that adjacent pieces must match the colors on the sides that touch. (The all-white piece is a joker that can be played on any turn.)

Each time a player places a trang, she scores points: the face value of the piece (1-6) multipled by the number of pieces adjacent to the space being occupied (1-3) multiplied by any bonus number (2-4) in that space. Therefore, a player scores between 1 and 72 points on each turn, and the game is all about keeping opponents out of the bonus spaces—or at least minimizing the points they earn when they do play in them. All of the pieces are visible, so sometimes easy moves present themselves, such as playing a piece with a yellow edge next to the bonus space while your opponent(s) have no pieces with yellow on them. More often than not, though, each player has all five colors somewhere on her pieces, which means you simply want to steer clear of the bonus spaces. Eventually, someone is forced to set up the following player, and that person scores dozens of points and races into the lead.

Spectrangle works well with families and casual game players, but the huge point swings present in the scoring might limit the game’s appeal to fans of deeper abstract games. The game does include a strudy travel case, which makes it a good choice for kids in the back seat of the car.

Spectrangle might be sold in mainstream locations due to its new publisher, but in case you can’t triangulate its location, here are a few online retailers that stock the game: Boulder Games, Thought Hammer, and Uncles Games.

December 19, 2006 | (11) Comments | Permalink