That’s why if I was a zombie, I would eat Reiner Knizia’s brain. Coming up with Ingenious Travel Edition is surely a sign that this brain would be most tasty. Never having played the standard edition, I had heard good things about it. The travel edition being under twenty dollars was a good deal.
The white box is very sturdy. The back notes that it’s for ages ten and up, for two players and runs for about twenty to forty minutes. It also notes that children zero through three should avoid it. Probably because of the small components.
Opening up the box, you get an eight page rule book, the board, a bag and a smaller bag. The board is off white with a slot for scoring, two slots for your pieces and the puzzle board itself. We found in game play that the slots for scoring were a tight fit and that the pieces, six different colored pins, one for each color on the board, were too small and frequently dropped them. The slots for holding your pieces weren’t deep enough and the playing pieces often sat at odd angles. The board itself is also not quite ‘deep’ enough to have the pieces placed on the board ‘snag’ it. Clean up is easy but annoying as it’s difficult to life the pieces. Reminds me of a ‘collector’s edition of Scrabble I have.
There are fifty seven playing tiles. These tiles are two pieces and can either come in two of the six different colors or can be the same color. There are ‘starting’ tiles, one for each color, on the board. You score points for placing your tile down next to similar colored tiles, but don’t count the tile you just placed down. You count the tiles in any straight line of the same color.
This leads to a slow start in scoring, but can quickly escalate as you place more and more tiles down. The examples show points ranging from one to twelve. When you reach eighteen, you cry out Ingenious’ and get another turn. Now the fun part of the game, is that there are six colors. The winner of the game is the person who has the highest lowest score. For example, if my red is lowest at six, and my girl friend’s lowest is orange at four, I win. This encourages you to build up points in all the colors. The downside, at least in the travel edition, is that the board is small and you can quickly cover up potential point scoring opportunities with a few bad tiles.
I played a game where I couldn’t score any points in blue for example.
The good thing about the colors, is that not only are they color coded, but are also shape oriented. While I had no problem telling colors or shapes apart, people who have problems with one or the other, due to say color blindness, should be able to use the shapes to tell the items apart. Even the scoring pegs have the same shape and color as the tiles to make scoring easy to track.
The game is quick and fun. It’s also a game where luck can play just as much importance as skill. While I tried to put some strategy and thought into my moves, neither my girlfriend or mother thought to and each won their fair share of games.
Aside from the component issue, which I suspect is caused more by the size of the thing than anything else, I have no complaints. Heck, the thing even comes with two bags, one of the playing pieces and another for the scoring pieces, which are very small and easy to lose. The thing fits nicely back into the box and clean up, outside of the annoyance of picking up the tiles (much like non-folding board of Scabble), is easy to handle.
Ingenious is plays quickly. It’s easy to set up. It’s quick to learn. It’s not exclusive to hard core gamers and casual players should find it a snap to pick up. In short, it’s Ingenious.
