Tic-Tac-WHOA!

Blaise Müller (game designer), Quarto

Have you ever wanted to recapture the speed, simplicity, and ease of Tic-Tac-Toe, without the annoyance of knowing from the get-go who’s going to win? Swiss mathematician Blaise Müller apparently shared this desire, because he invented Quarto, a similarly themed grid game which shares the goal of creating a straight line of symbols. Then he added one complication: your opponent picks your symbol.

Müller gives you sixteen pieces, and a playing board with sixteen round “squares.” The pieces divide into four pairs: pale or dark finish, short or tall, round or square, dimpled or not-dimpled on top. Your goal is simply to create a line of four pieces across the board, where all four pieces have some quality in common. But you don’t get to pick which piece you set from move to move, oh no. Your opponent hands you your pieces.

I’ve recently become a fan of games like Onitama and Pylos, with simple boards and few rules, which nevertheless admit multiple forms of strategy. Quarto, manufactured by the German company Gigamic, which also manufactures Pylos, has rules filling less than one page of the included instruction booklet. Yet once you start playing, you realize the game admits hundreds of possible interpretations. Minutes to learn, they say; years to master.

You need to think strategically, just like in Chess or Connect Four, not only in placing your pieces, but in how you block your opponent in placing theirs. But you get the added complication that you relinquish control, allowing your opponent to make some level of decision about the choices available to you. Think of it like a metaphor for the capitalist economy: you both are, and are not, in control of your decisions.

Most games run under fifteen minutes. Like in Chess, players often make early moves hastily, almost arbitrarily, then slow down as the game’s middle forces deliberative strategy. Then at the end, you find yourself moving lickety-split again, as the conclusion becomes inevitable. And when it’s over, you’re ready to play again, because you’re awash in heady excitement of new discovery.

Or is that just me?