Gigamic Games puts out some of the best looking designs in the boardgame world today. The craftsmanship put into their abstracts is consistently top notch. Today we will take a look at their latest entry into that field and see if it stacks up to the quality of the rest of their titles in the game Squadro.
Squadro is a 2 player game that plays ages 8+ in 20 minutes. The game components include:
- 1 gameboard
- 5 light game pieces
- 5 dark game pieces
- rulebook
If you end your turn on a piece occupied by another player, your piece will jump directly over it and lands behind it. If you jump over another piece owned by the other player, you jump over them and stop on the first empty space even if you had movement remaining. The piece(s) that are jumped over owned by the other player must go back to their edge they started at or turned around at.
Gameplay:
Each player starts with 5 pieces of the same color on their respective side of the board. Each turn, you are allowed to move one of the pieces on the board forward based on the amount of points at the starting space it started in. You must always move in a straight line the direction it is pointed. You must move your entire movement unless prevented.
When a piece reaches the other side of the board you turn it around and begin back the other way. From the turn the piece now has movement equal to the dots on that side of the board for its space.
You will take turns doing this back and forth until someone has four of their five pieces move down and back thus winning the game.
Impressions:
Overall Squaro is another solid addition to the abstract line of games from Gigamic Games. It plays smooth and in a short amount of time, allowing players to get a great experience as a light play. Don’t let the light quick play of this game disguise what it really is-a cutthroat game that pits ou against your opponent in a game of wits and taking advantage of their lack of planning ahead to your moves.
It sets up easy right out of the box and will be a great filler or late night end of the day type of game in our house. The component quality continues to be excellent from Gigamic, solid wood board and pieces that are nice and weighty. Overall I would highly recommend this game to anyone who has been impressed with their line of games in the past or is looking for a new company to explore abstract games from. This will certainly find its way into our rotation of two player games!
