Spectrangle

Spectrangle is a lovely, and happily intense game of luck and srategy - with just enough complexity to present a challenge, and just enough chance to keep the playing field level, as it were, so to speak, even if adults are playing too.

Speaking of playing fields, the game is played on one of a very few, if not the only, triangular game board. A very nice, molded triangular game board, by the way, that has a molded triangular lid that snaps down to store all the pieces. And the pieces themselves are colorful and of appreciable heft. And you know how much we love heft.

Players draw 4 numbered triangular tiles ("trangs") from a bag, and then take turns placing tiles on the board so that adjacent colors match. Certain spaces on the board score twice or three-times the value of the tile that occupies them. This significantly adds to the strategic interest of the game - weighing the value of holding on to a high-scoring tile, avoiding giving the opponent access to the high-score positions on the board, and, since score is determined by multiplying the number on a trang by the number of matching sides, times the value of the space it is on, looking for the highest scoring play becomes a truly challenging task.