I apologize for the long hiatus. I haven’t been idle in gaming, and in fact, I have quite a queue of pseudo-reviews to write, including Niagra, Medici, Ingenious, and Carcassone: Hunters & Gatherers.

This one is a short review of Tsuro, and it’s an easy review to write. Tsuro is a tile-laying game. You start your marker on one edge of the board and lay tiles to extend the path that it lies on, attempting not to join it to another end of the board, while trying if possible to connect your opponents to the end of the board.

The board only takes 35 tiles, so there’s no risk of the game running for a very long time.

The Good: Visually, the game is very beautiful. It’s good filler for any number of people. When they say 2-8 players, they’re not kidding; it works fine with any number. You can play a game involving new players in 15 minutes, and experienced players can probably manage a 5-minute game.

The Bad: There’s really not much strategy. Over the course of the game, only two or three moves will probably be of any consequence. In a large game, the amount of control you have over your own destiny is very small.

The Ugly: None. As I stated before, the game is very pretty.

The Strange: I’m surprised Tsuro was themed so abstractly and marketed as an ordinary adult board game. With its easy rules and quick play, it could have easily been themed as a children’s game–replace the abstract paths and markers with roadways and race cars, or slides.

The Verdict: In my opinion, Tsuro is fun and a cute filler game to have around, but too expensive and too light to pay full price for. Consider it if you find yourself in need of a filler game to play with a varying number of people and see it on sale.