So, we have arguably the Game of the Year in Ra, unquestionably the best
Card Game of recent memory with Lost Cities, and now surely more than a
contender for Abstract Game Of 1999 in Olix. How Reiner Knizia gets away
with it is beyond my comprehension, because Olix is no more than a finely
developed "Five In Row". But that, of course, is his magic elixir. And
for good measure, we have another brilliant scoring system.
Olix simply requires each of the two players to alternately place a disc of their colour
(red or blue) on a simple gridded board in any one of four possible shapes.
These make up the letters of the game--OLIX--and are constructed as
follows.
- O: Four or more adjacent (like a square, oblong, etc) or placed
like a hollow square or oblong.
- L: A right angle, with a minimum of three markers in each length.
- I: The easy one. Just a straight line (vertical or horizontal),
comprising a minimum four counters.
- X: The most confusing. Like the 'I', but on any diagonal,
with, again, a four-counter minimum.
For example, two possible 'O'-shapes are
while the following are, respectively, an 'I', an 'L' and an 'X'
To the north of the playing area is a scoring section. Once a minimum
permitted pattern is established, a marker is placed on the equivalent
total. Players may tie for each letter, but any extension means removal
of the previous highest marker(s). In the tweak of the year, victory is
earned by broaching the scoring section of ANY letter eg, from 9 (for
the 'O') to theoretical 10), or totalling points when an impasse is reached.
My spatial vision is near useless, and would not ordinarily allow me to
compete satisfactorily, but I found the familiarity of the concept particularly
comforting, and patterns soon become easy to identify.
This is a classic game of expansion and blocking. We might as well all
give up and go home whilst Reiner is on a hot creative streak. Credit, also,
to Spiel & Spass (publishers of both Olix and Tabula Rasa) who I understand
previously specialised in children's games and who might, initially, find
this a minor barrier before cracking the adult market.
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