TANTRIX VS QWIRKLE

Tantrix is a hexagonal tile-based abstract game invented by Mike McManaway from New Zealand. Each of the 56 different tiles in the set contains three lines, going from one edge of the tile to another. No two lines on a tile have the same colour. There are four colours in the set: red, yellow, blue, and green. No two tiles are identical, and each is individually numbered from 1 through 56. In the multiplayer version of the game, each player chooses a colour, so there are between two and four players. Each draws one tile from the bag, and the person who draws the highest number goes first. Each player then takes five more tiles from the bag, and places all six tiles face up in front of them. The first person plays one tile, usually with their colour on it. Play then rotates clockwise. After playing a tile, each player takes a replacement tile from the bag, so that they always have six in front of them. Tiles played must match the colour of the edges adjoining it. When three tiles surround an empty space so that it is effectively half covered this is called a forced space. If the person whose turn it is has a tile that fills that space they must play it. The player repeats this process until there are no more forced spaces that they can fill, at which stage they make a free move, where they can play any tile as long as they don't breach the three restriction rules given below. Once they have had a free move, they must then fill any more forced spaces that they can. Thus one player's turn can consist of several moves.

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Qwirkle is a tile-based game for two to four players, designed by Susan McKinley Ross and published by MindWare. Qwirkle shares some characteristics with the games Rummikub and Scrabble. It is distributed in Canada by game and puzzle company Outset Media. Qwirkle is considered by MindWare to be its most awarded game of all time. In 2011, Qwirkle won the Spiel des Jahres, widely considered the most prestigious award in the board and card game industry. A sequel, Qwirkle Cubes, was released by Mindware in 2009. Qwirkle comes with 108 wooden tiles, and each tile is painted with one of six shapes (clover, four-point star, eight-point star, square, circle and diamond) in one of six colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple). The box also contains a bag to store the tiles and a rule book. The game begins with all the tiles being placed in the bag and mixed thoroughly. Each player then randomly draws six tiles. During their turn, a player may either: place one or several tiles on the table; or instead of playing tiles, exchange one or more tiles in their hand for other random tiles. In general, any tiles that are placed in a row must share one attribute (either color or shape), and they must be played in one line, although they do not need to touch other tiles being placed in that turn. A player must always end a turn with six tiles, so, if they place tiles during a turn, they draw random tiles to build their hand back up to six. Play continues until one person uses all of their available tiles and there are no more tiles to be drawn.

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