Matthew BaileyBloxo is a small form factor tile-matching game where each player takes a hand of cards featuring a selection of either circles, crosses, stars, or diamonds. The goal is to score as many points as possible.
You score points by laying cards. When you place a card, you get points for any groupings you create. For example, if you lay a yellow shape next to another yellow, you get 2 points for those two yellows, plus any additional points for other yellows connected to that group. Essentially, you’re trying to build big clusters of matching colours to score more and more points.
Play continues until no player can make a move or you run out of cards.
Bloxo makes a fairly good first impression. It’s simple, and the concept of matching tiles to trigger big multipliers works well. However, a few odd design choices hold it back from being a strong recommendation.
Firstly, because of the way joining works, the most effective strategy is to extend off the end of existing groups—matching two different colours with another two different colours—snaking your way towards larger sections. That seems to be the most efficient way to earn points. Because you have to join every single shape, you often end up with a lot of dead spaces. In theory, that’s not a big problem—but the lack of variety in the shapes becomes an issue.
There are basically three types of cards: ones with all the same colour, ones with two different colours (always positioned the same way), or ones with all different colours. You never get diagonal arrangements of colours or anything like “three of one and one of another,” and there are no opposite sides with matching colours. This quickly limits your placement options—not in a fun, strategic way, but in a frustrating, repetitive way. You often end up having to build longer and longer chains just to keep the game going. A few extra card types would’ve made a big difference.
Okay, yes—it would’ve increased the overall size of the game, and while this is definitely a game you can toss in a bag, it actually takes up a lot of table space. So while it’s travel-sized in terms of packaging, it’s not really something you could play on, say, an airplane tray table.
It’s not terrible. There’s definitely a good game buried in here somewhere, and on paper it’s quite fun. But it didn’t take long for us to realise there are a few small tweaks that could make Bloxo a much better game.
Should I Play? : UNLIKELY
Disclaimer: A copy of the game was kindly provided by “BLOXO” for the purpose of review via the “UK Board Gamer Review Circle”. All thoughts and opinions are our own.
