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Qubik

Qubik is a simple but satisfyingly tactile game from Siam Board Games. It's designed by Preeda Pitianusorn and it's billed as a cross between Tic-Tac-Toe and Rubik's Cube.



The game is played using a set of 32 chunky wooden cubes (essentially, blank dice): six each in red, blue, green and yellow, plus five 'colourless' cubes and three black cubes that are only used in solitaire play. The rules incorporate several variants, notionally for 'casual', 'competitive' or solo play. For all variants, however, players are collectively building a three-dimensional 3 x 3 x 3 structure with the win going to the first player to complete an orthogonal, diagonal or vertical line of three cubes of the same colour. Colourless cubes are wild, so picking up and playing with a colourless cube can be a liability as you can all-too-easily find you are setting up an opponent for an easy win.



The 'casual' game caters for up to seven players. Each maintains a concealed hand of two cubes drawn from a bag. You don't generally know what cubes other players are holding, tho' if a player draws a colourless cube they have to announce it to the other players and they must place it out on their next turn. The 'competitive' version is for 2-5 players. In this mode, players openly draft cubes to form their 'hand' as a line of cubes. On your turn, you must take and place out a cube from either the left or right end of your line. All players thus have completely open information on what cubes other players have available to them...


Since you're only ever placing out a maximum of 27 cubes between you, games of Qubik are quick, regardless of the number of players. That means a playing time of just 5-10 minutes, making Qubik a versatile little filler game. We were just left puzzled by artwork on the box that was suggestive of a non-existent Harry Potter-esque theme.



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