Pattern Recognition

A traditional tile game played in many different cultures around the world. This entry is for Western Dominoes; the standard set being the 28 "Double Six" tiles. Chinese Dominoes use a 32 tile set with different distributions.

Dominoes is a family of games using the "Western" style tiles. The standard set of tiles is based on the 21 different combinations made with a roll of two six-sided dice. Seven (7) additional "Blank" combination tiles combine with the 21 to form the standard 28 "Double-Six" set. "Double-Nine" (with 55 tiles) and "Double-Twelve" (with 91 tiles) are also popular ("Double-Fifteen" sets also exist).

There are many different games played with Dominoes. The standard game is known as the Block game. Forms of this game are known in many different areas of the world with similar rules. Puerto Rican Dominoes, Latin Dominoes, and Cuban Dominoes are all forms of the Block game.

Another main variety of Dominoes games are based on the "Fives Family." Five-up, All Fives, Sniff, and Muggins are all part of this family. This variation adds the ends of the dominoes to make a multiple of five for scoring.

Other popular Dominoes games include 42, ChickenFoot, and Mexican Train.

A fairly complete listing of rules for Western Domino Games is available at:
http://www.pagat.com/tile/wdom/

Each of 28 hex tiles displays one of three shapes in one of three colors and one of three sizes. Players take turns placing a tile from their hand next to a previously-placed tile on the board that shares at least one attribute (shape, size, or color)with the new tile. The object is to be the first player to form a row of four adjacent tiles.

From the publisher: "Torches are blazing, mists are wafting ... in the Holy Circle the High Priestess celebrates her ritual with her novices. They sing with all their heart, cuddle the artifacts, and rearrange them in ever new patterns.

"But what if you do not know the religious rules? The best thing is to watch what the others are doing and imitate them. But cautious: Maybe your neighbor just violated a taboo and made the High Priestess angry …

"Each player takes the role of the High Priestess once and determines the rules of her own religion. The other players are novices trying to sense these rules and thus gather as much karma as possible."

The "priestess" player secretly chooses four cards that determine which actions are rewarded and which taboo. The other players simply move a pawn on the board and are awarded points by the priestess based on how their actions (including seemingly irrelevant ones like body movement or tone of voice) correspond with the rules. At the end of a round the priestess receives the same score as the highest-scoring adept, encouraging her to make the rules difficult but not impossible to guess.

The game consists of 12 different pieces constructed of right angled blocks so each piece is made of 5 "squares". (Think Tetris pieces, but 5 squares instead of 4.)

An old version of the game had only 10 pieces; the completely straight 5 square and the 5 square "plus sign" were not included. Both versions also have a bunch of "filler" pieces of 1 or 2 squares.

The gameboard is constructed with a movable divider so one can take sets of 4 up to the whole set of 12 pieces and form them into a 5 block by X rectangle. (Where X = the number of wood blocks in your set.)

The two or three player strategy game is accomplished on a square board divided into 64 smaller squares. Players take turns to place a piece on the gameboard. The first player who cannot place a piece anymore loses. (Similar to Blokus)

The two player puzzle game mode is accomplished by dividing the board into two sections, each player chooses five blocks and are also given 4 small "filler" blocks of 1 and 2 squares. The first one to fit all their blocks perfectly into their half of the rectangle board, wins.

An abstract strategy game for 2 players with four 3×3 grids arranged into a larger 6×6 grid. This game re-implements the well known "connect 4" with a twist: after placing a marble of his colour, the player has to twist one of the grids by 90°, so changing the board after every turn. The first player to get 5 in a row wins.