Flash Review — Tesseract

Players: 1-4
Works well with just 2: Yes!
Solo quality: fine
Age: 14+
Playtime: 60 min
Complexity: 5/10

A tesseract (a four-dimensional cube) has appeared in the sky, and a bunch of scientists must work together to disarm it before it destroys our universe.

Forget the thin sci-fi conceit: Tesseract is a cooperative game where players slowly dismantle a (three-dimensional) cube made out of dice they then manipulate to perform a variety of tasks. Get the job done before the tesseract finishes counting down, and you win.

Pretty colors can kill you!

The menu of operations available to players is a mix of classic (rotate a die, flip a die, change a die’s color) and innovative (exchange dice with a collaborator, manipulate a die to affect another die remotely, put a die back in the tesseract), all aimed at completing an array of 24 tasks before time runs out.

7 tasks down, 17 to go

The tesseract eliminates at least one of its own dice every turn, and whenever a column is empty, it triggers the base-plate symbol just revealed—and those are no good. Also, if the tesseract ever runs out of dice, the game is lost. But the fascinating thing here is that the raw resources players must use to defuse the ticking time-bomb are the tesseract’s dice themselves. So you have to speed up the timer if you ever hope to stop it. There’s no playing it safe.

That orange symbol removes an additional die from the tesseract. Sorry.

The components are great fun, the lazy susan (gentle!) the tesseract rests on works like a charm, and you do feel the mounting pressure throughout the game. With four different difficulty levels and a gazillion possible starting setups—just look at that cube—the experience should remain challenging for a long time.

Solo gameplay involves a single player going at it two-handed. It’s not my favorite solo system, but it works well.

I’ll just add that the official age suggestion seems out of line here: an interested 10-year-old could certainly play Tesseract without any problem. (Maybe even at 8; kids are sharp.)

Most easily forgotten rule: When you contain a die from the tesseract, you get to destroy an identical die (color and value) from the Primed Area.



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Flash Review — Framework

Players: 1-4

Works well with just 2: Yes!
Solo quality: a bit boring
Age: 8+
Playtime: 30 min
Complexity: 3/10

Just like Applejack, this is one of Uwe Rosenberg’s simple-yet-clever designs, albeit under a more abstract guise: you’re just building a series of interlocking tasks that you try to complete.

The game is played with a huge variety of tiles that players organize in rows and columns, with no predefined grid to adhere to. When it’s your turn, you pick one tile from a limited selection on offer and add it to your structure, making sure the new tile orthogonally touches at least one other tile. Then you check if you’ve completed some of your tasks, and put one of your wooden markers on each of them that’s done.

Some tiles will display one or more tasks, in the form of a number on a colored background; other tiles will show one or more colored frames (used to complete the aforementioned tasks); and a third category of tiles will sport both bits of information.

Which would you pick?

To complete a task, you need the required number of frames in the requested color, arrayed in a continuous chain where at least one link in the chain is in direct contact with the task at hand.
In the example below, the 5-yellow task is done (I should put a wooden marker on it), but the 3-gray task is still missing one gray frame—and the 4-brown/orange task has nothing going for it. Yet.

Some tiles are self-fulfilling (like a 5-green task that also shows a green frame), which makes them easier to pull off and kind of a no-brainer. Where things get twisted (and interesting!) is when you have to deal with, say, a 7-brown task surrounded by a yellow frame: Do you place that tile next to your group of brown frames, or would it be more effective to forsake the 7-brown task and instead use the yellow frame to complete a bunch of yellow tasks elsewhere?

The first player who completes 22 tasks (i.e. runs out of wooden markers) wins the game. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll just want to play it again, and again. It’s amazing how much gameplay Rosenberg can pack in a 30-minute game with two and a half rules to learn, with something addictive thrown in for good measure. So don’t be fazed by the apparent simplicity of Framework: it’s dead easy to learn, yet damn fun to play.

The solo game is, as with most of Rosenberg’s designs, a beat-your-own-score type of puzzle. So the first time you play it, you don’t win nor do you lose: you just set your own benchmark—then you try to do better. Not my kind of solo experience, but it’s over in five minutes and it’s not an unpleasant exercise.

Most easily forgotten rule: In this case it’s not a rule you’re likely to forget, but rather a completed task you’re just not seeing. Keep your eyes peeled!

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Flash Review — Sky Team

Players: 2
Age: 12+
Playtime: 15 min
Complexity: 4.5/10

It’s been an uneventful flight across the ocean, the airport is in sight, and all you and your co-pilot need to do now is safely land that behemoth. Shouldn’t be any problem, right?

Sky Team is a cooperative dice-placement game that, despite its slim 15-minute play time, manages to generate thrills galore throughout and then enthusiastic high fives when the wheels finally touch ground.

Each turn, both pilot and co-pilot roll four dice and assign them one by one (without talking to each other!) to critical systems. Two dice placements are mandatory—engine power and horizontal axis—but you’ll have to take care of the rest eventually. However, will you have the right dice values at hand when you decide to deploy the landing gear, lower the flaps, or apply the breaks? And don’t forget to stay in touch with air traffic control so that they can clear the runway as you start your approach…

The starting scenario, Montreal, uses only the basic functions of the plane, and it’s still a blast to play. As you fly from one airport to the next, new challenges will include fuel management, ice worries, wind problems, further traffic headaches, and even a pesky intern stealing some of your precious time away from vital maneuvers. (And publisher Le Scorpion Masqué keeps adding new, printable scenarios to their website.)

At the very least, it’s worth 15 minutes of your time to give the game a shot.
But I’m convinced YUL love it.

Most easily forgotten rule: Axis and engine power are resolved as soon as their two dice are in place (and not at the end of the turn).



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