Power Lines

Description

Photo courtesy Brett & Board

One of the first seven games available for the piecepack.

The first player will choose a tile and place it in the middle of the table. On subsequent turns, players will add tiles, eventually forming a square grid that is four tiles high and four tiles wide. Since the grid is formed as play continues, the first tile played could potentially be in any grid position at the end of the game. Throughout play, one player will attempt to get the tiles in any given row, column, or diagonal of the grid to match by suit, while the other player will try to get them to match by value. After all sixteen tiles have been played, the grid will be fully formed, and the game is scored.

Rules

https://web.archive.org/web/2016/http://www.piecepack.org/rules/PowerLines.pdf

PowerLinesTextVersion

Reviews & Comments

One of the RecommendedGames. (./) (./) (./) One of the OriginalSevenGames.

Review at Brett & Board

I played a game of Power Lines with my brother last night. I have played before, so knew it was a good game. The idea is to assemble a 4x4 square of tiles. One player tries to make rows, columns and diagonals of suits, the other numbers. It is an elegantly designed game and really encourages you to think. It was a tough battle and my brother won by one point on aggregate – we played twice as the rules recommend. There is very little bad I can say about Power Lines and I recommend it as it is nice and short. My only reservation is that it might not have more depth than we uncovered last night. I will have to give it a few more plays before I can decide for sure.

--IainCheyne, from Inconsequential ruminations

"Last game of the session was a match of Power Lines. Now there's a good game! Unfortunately I lost our two-game match 29-15. It's a nice little abstract, which reminds me somewhat of Quarto. It's certainly no Zèrtz, but it's easy to figure out and gives a nice little brain workout." (./) (./)

--Mikko Saari at Gameblog

The rules are very short and easy to understand. The game itself is fun, but gets less interesting if played frequently. (./)

--KarlBartel

Why is this listed as requiring a "standard piecepack" and not just "any piecepack?"

-JEEP

CategoryGame SpaceAlignmentLineCategory RecommendedGamesCategory