Qwirkle

Qwirkle

The Qwirkle game box
Publishers	Mindware (Division of OTC Subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway)
Publication	2006
Genres	Abstract, family, Tile-laying
Players	2–4 players
Setup time	1 minute
Playing time	30–45 minutes
Chance	Moderate
Age range	6+
Skills	Strategy, logic

Qwirkle is a tile-based game for two to four players, designed by Susan McKinley Ross and published by MindWare. Qwirkle shares some characteristics with the games Rummikub and Scrabble. It is distributed in Canada by game and puzzle company Outset Media. Qwirkle is considered by MindWare to be its most awarded game of all time. In 2011, Qwirkle won the Spiel des Jahres, widely considered the most prestigious award in the board and card game industry. A sequel, Qwirkle Cubes, was released by Mindware in 2009.

Equipment

Qwirkle comes with 108 wooden tiles, and each tile is painted with one of six shapes (clover, four-point star, eight-point star, square, circle and diamond) in one of six colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple). The box also contains a bag to store the tiles and a rule book.

Play

The game begins with all the tiles being placed in the bag and mixed thoroughly. Each player then randomly draws six tiles. During their turn, a player may either:

• place one or several tiles on the table; or
• instead of playing tiles, exchange one or more tiles in their hand for other random tiles.

In general, any tiles that are placed in a row must share one attribute (either color or shape), and they must be played in one line, although they do not need to touch other tiles being placed in that turn.

A player must always end a turn with six tiles, so, if they place tiles during a turn, they draw random tiles to build their hand back up to six.

Play continues until one person uses all of their available tiles and there are no more tiles to be drawn.

Scoring

Players score one point for each tile placed within a line, including existing tiles within the line. The idea is to form lines that have each shape of a certain color, or each color of a certain shape. For example: if there are three stars placed down on the grid (one green, one blue, and one purple), then the player can put down another star that is red, orange or yellow. If a line is completed (this is called a "qwirkle"), then an additional six points is added to the player's score.

At the end of the game, once there are no more tiles to be drawn to replenish one's hand, the first person to play all of their tiles gains an extra six point bonus, at which point the game ends, and the player who has the highest score wins.

Awards

• 2011 Spiel des Jahres
• Parent's Choice Gold Award
• Mensa Select Award
• Major Fun Award