Try Blokus AND The Nerdy Parent Original Add-On Game, Blokris 🟥 🟨 🟩 🟦

If you have never played Blokus, you really need to give it a try. It is an amazing game for kids and for adults!

The greatest thing about Blokus is that the rules are really simple, but optimizing your strategy is quite involved. This is great because even young kids can understand the rules, play, and have fun pretty easily but it's still interesting for you, as an adult, to play with them.

Intro to Blokus
Rules Modifications Not Needed
Blokris (Blokus-Tetris)

Intro to Blokus

Blokus is one of those rare games that doesn't involve dice or the luck of the draw (cards), the only "random" element to the game is who gets to go first. I love this type of low-luck, high-strategy game. Blokus is also especially good because of the cool and unique pieces, and the great colors.

It's a bit like competitive Tetris on a board, but unlike Tetris, your pieces can only be touching at the corners, not on the edges. By connecting your pieces corner to corner across the board, you attempt to block off as much space as you can. Your objective is to save enough space to be able to play all your pieces by the end of the game while preventing your competitors from being able to do the same.

One downside is that, according to the official rules, it needs to be played with either 2 or 4 people, although this can be overcome with a bit of an adjustment. For example, if you have 3 people, try sectioning off one corner of the board as an out-of-bounds area.

Rules Modifications Not Needed

I've written board game posts before that simplify the rules of various games so that your kids can start learning more easily, then work up to the full rules. With Blokus, this isn't really needed because the rules are already very simple.

One of the hardest rules to learn with Blokus is the fact that you are only allowed to connect your pieces corner-to-corner. The edges of your own pieces can't touch. Because of this, I considered letting my kids start with a modification where they can connect pieces edge to edge, but realized this would only make it harder to learn the proper rules when it was time.

I also considered a Simplified Rules Modification Level where only two people play, using the full board, with only one color each. This would make it easier to get all your pieces on the board, since there would be more than enough space for both players, but wouldn't help kids understand the need to block their opponents off early in the game. It's a better learning experience to end up with only half your pieces out onto the board and be blocked off the first few times you play. So I decided not to use this modification either.

Blokris (Blokus-Tetris)

As opposed to using rules modifications, there is another pretty fun game that you can play using the Blokus pieces that my kids and I invented one day after playing the regular game. This version of the game works with any number of players from 1 to 4. Yes, you can even play by yourself and it's still pretty fun, like the Solitaire of Blokus. Maybe I should call that version, Blokitaire.

The game is ...