Clustered

I grew up playing dominoes. As a kid, the simple number matching makes it a quick game to pick up and as I got older, I learned the strategies that go into playing the right dominoes and making smart blocks. Clustered, by Sculpin Games, is a game that takes those ideas and turns them up several notches. It’s a game for 1 to 4 players that takes 5 minutes to learn, but you won’t be quick to master it.

Each player is given a deck of 27 small colour coded cards. There is nothing fancy about these cards as they certainly favour function over fashion. Each card has a symbol on it; either a triangle, a square, or a circle. The number of symbols on each card vary from one, two or three. And the symbols are either solid (filled in), dashed (partially filled) or hollow (unfilled). At the start of your game, you take your deck and shuffle it. Which can be a tricky task, as those small cards are not the easiest to manipulate. Deal yourself a hand of five cards from your deck and you’re ready to start.

Clustered

The game begins with the starting wild card (the only black card, don’t confuse it with the other wild cards). The game works like dominoes in which you can play a card by lining it up next to a corresponding card. The trick to Clustered is that for a play to be legal, the two cards must share two attributes. An example; a card with three solid triangles and one solid triangle can be played next to each other because they share solid and triangle as attributes. On every turn, you must play a card if you have a legal move on the board. If you don’t have a legal move, discard one card. At the end of a turn, replenish your hand back up to five and the game ends when you are out of cards or there are no legal plays left.

You win in Clustered by having the most points on the board. A quick note about Clustered’s board- make sure you have a large playing surface as this is a game that tends to spread out. Players score points in two ways. The first is earning a point for every card in their largest rectangle (must be more that two cards high and wide) and second is earning a point for every card in their longest line (must be more than three cards long).

With its minimalist art style and quick to pickup play, it is easy to mistake Clustered for a simple game. But there is an underlying complexity. There is a certain satisfaction that comes from finding that elusive card that fits like a jigsaw puzzle piece in your board or making a block that ruins your opponent’s high scoring line. If you like to break out the old classics, Clustered will easily earn a place in your collection.

Clustered is on Kickstarter right now, and finishes in a few days. It has currently met and exceeded its AUD$3,392 pledge goal.

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