Pack and Stack - Tetris meets moving day

The short of it:

Tetris meets moving day sans music and beer.

The good:

Very simple ruleset, quick playtime, kid friendly.

The bad:

Can be frustrating until you get the hang of it. Short arms make it hard to reach trucks.

The ugly:

Nothing I can really think of. Unless you count how TheCheese seems to be really good at it.

The gameplay:

Each player starts with a certain amount of points - the rules say 75, but this could be adjusted upward or downward depending on long or short you want the game. Even at 75 points, it's usually over in about thrity minutes as once a player hits 0-points, the game is over. The winner is the person left with the most points.

The game is broken up into rounds. Each round, each player rolls a set of coloured dice relating to various pieces in the game. For example, the blue die with blank, 1, and 2 on it, relates to the largest piece - 5 units long. The player takes the approriate amount of pieces and starts to get an idea of what kind of truck they need.

That leads us to the next mechanic - trucks. There are quite a few trucks, and they each have different cargo payloads. Some can be stacked two high, some can be stacked three high. At most they are three wide, but can be up to five long and three high. Why is this important? Your ultimate goal is to pick the truck that fits your cargo perfectly with no left over cargo, and no empty space. You lose one point for every empty space on your truck, and two points for every unit of cargo you can't fit on your truck. So, going back to our blue piece (the 5-unit long piece), if you can't fit it that's ten points. If your truck is way too small, you're going to eat a lot of points.

So how does one get a truck? Every player gets dealt two face down trucks and someone is designated as the "starter" who yells go. Everyone, at the same time, flips over their two trucks. Now, here is where having short arms is bad, you cannot take a truck in front of yourself. You MUST take a truck from another player. So, in a mad rush of analysis and panic, everyone reaches for trucks they think will work. Think too slow, you lose the perfect truck. Act too quick, you might grab the wrong one by accident. To add more pressure, if you are the last one without a truck, you get a random one from the pile. Sometimes it's your best option, sometimes it's your worst nightmare. Once all the trucks are picked, you pack and stack, and then finally you score.

Overall, this game feels a bit like tetris except you know your entire piece-set up front. The first time I played it I wasn't impressed but with each subsequent play I've found the game to be more and more enjoyable. The simple rules make it ideal for playing with children though younger kids may need help with the counting.

This game is definitely worth checking out - it has good re-playability, is quick, and is fun.