Gobblet, as the game description says, is basically a tic-tac-toe game. What makes it vastly more interesting than tic-tac-toe is that each player has six pieces which come in three different sizes (which I will call small, medium and large) that can nest inside one another. The game plays like tic-tac toe, except that you may move your pieces that are already on the board, and larger pieces can cover up smaller pieces. A player can even cover up their own smaller pieces with a larger piece.

This simple nesting mechanism leads to quite subtle game play. The large pieces are the most powerful because it is impossible for your opponent to cover them up, but since you only have two of those pieces, you obviously cant win without using a weaker piece. Covering up an opponents pieces early in the game can give you the initiative, but in games that go on a bit longer, sometimes this backfires, as you can no longer move your large pieces because if you lift them, this will reveal the piece underneath and give your opponent three-in-a-row.

With such a small board and so few pieces (relatively speaking), the game play is entirely tactical. Because the game is so small, I expect that given sufficient time, one could map out a perfect strategy in which the player going first always win. This probably will turn off some people who enjoy more grand strategy. The games that I have played really seem to start after my opponent and I have played our first two moves without a lot of thinking and then we start to see where this game will go.

My wife, who is not really a game player, loves this game. One of the best features is that the game plays very quickly, with quick games lasting one minute, and a long game going for three. My five year old daughter can play, and she likes capturing the pieces, but it isnt a game that holds her attention.