Hey folks! I’m back again with another game review. This time we’re building a Aztec temple. We’re matching colors, icons, or both in an attempt to get rid of our stone first! Aztack is abstract domino game by Brad Ross and Jim Winslow. It’s a pattern game that’s 2 to 4 players and plays in about 10 to 15 minutes. It’s a quick filler.
So, recently the family and I went on vacation. We went and saw beautiful waterfalls, winding roads, mountaintops, and a cave. One thing I like to do while going on vacation, and hopefully now that it’s been two years in a row it’s a tradition, is going to an out of state 2nd and Charles, Books-a-Million, or Half Priced Books and see what they have as far as games. Well, it was between Bora Bora or 504. My wife asked if I had enough games like that. Not wanting to go empty handed, I was looking at Aztack too. For $7, it got my wife’s approval. I’ve enjoyed enough Blue Orange games to know they usually have high quality components and easy play. This one looked liked dominoes, but that’s all I knew going into the game.
The components for the game are 60 domino tiles and the rue book.
The dominoes come in combinations of 5 different colors and 4 different symbols. The colors and symbols are also recessed and the back of the dominoes have ridges that lock them in when stacking.
To start the game, first randomly select 12 dominoes and make two rows of 6. If you’re counting each half of a domino, it would then make a 4×6 grid. This is your temple base. Next, each player randomly selects 12 dominoes. Now you’re ready to play.
On each players turn they can either play a tile or if they can’t they have to pass. To play a tile, you select either colors or symbols and the match accordingly. You can’t split color and symbol and match one of each. You can, however, match both the colors and symbols exactly. Once you’ve picked what to match, it’s time to place your tile. Your tile needs to bridge two other tiles for it to be a legal move. If you did manage to match both colors and symbols exactly, you get to discard one of your tiles. Once you place a tile, it’s the next players turn. This goes on until one player has played all their tiles. Then they are the winner. Alternatively, the game will end if no one has any legal moves left. At that point, the player with the least amount of tiles is the winner.
Here’s matching colors.
So, it’s a quick game. The name is Aztack. Which is a combination of Aztec and Stack. It’s a simple game. It’s fast to explain, and fast to play. The game itself feels a bit unfinished if you’re playing with adults. It’s not hard to get rid of your tiles, and often colors will be easiest to match. It is nice that if you match both colors and symbols you get to discard one tile. It’s satisfying that the tiles lock together as you’re building this temple up. The tiles are nice and hefty. One of my criticisms for the game is that so much of the game is random, but they didn’t include a tile bag. First thing I did when opening this game was grab a black bag to store all the tiles in. It made it easy to shake the bag, and randomize the tiles. For adults, this would be low on my list for filler type games to play. For a kids game, I’d put this higher up on my list. I like that it teaches scanning and pattern recognition. My 4 year old son was having a blast finding where he could put the tiles. For a $7 game, this isn’t bad. If you find it at full price, I would pass on it. I feel like they could have polished this game up a bit more in terms of rules. Perhaps if you match colors or symbols you pick one color or symbol on the tile played and each one does something different.
Everyone and their Grandmother Games 