Game 85: Tsuro

 I thought for sure I had posted about this game already, but as I was in the midst of my last "BONUS post" about a recent game night I realized I hadn't.  I love the Oriental look and feel to this game.  I've never thought much about strategy with it;  I just enjoy the beauty and the flow.  That's pretty different for me.  Normally I'm very competitive and strategy-driven, but it almost seems that this game is about meditation, kind of like a table-top sand garden or something.  I'm sure if I wanted to spend time considering all possible configurations of tiles and so on that I could make this game be about strategy, but it's kind of nice once in a while to just play and talk and not think too much.  The board is beautiful, and the pieces are unique and appealing, so I figure maybe it's OK to have a game that feels more like art than like a battle.  I still like to win, of course, which I did this time around, but here I feel OK just going with the flow and letting the outcome be the outcome.
 On each turn a player lays a tile from his or her hand on the 6x6 grid.  The tile must be played such that it touches the player's token, thus allowing the token to advance.  When a tile is played the players token does move, but so do any other tokens touching the newly-laid tile.  If a path forces a players token to leave the board, that person is then out of the game.  If two tokens collide, then both of the players to whom those tokens belong are out of the game.  The winner is the player with the last token still on the board.
 All tiles have two entry/exit points on each side, so all tiles fit together no matter how you place them.  Each tile is unique.  To me, the final result really does seem like the convoluted path of life.
We don't play this a lot, but I find it a relaxing, peaceful game to play, which is a nice change from our standard intensely strategic gaming on occasion.

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