It's a shame you stopped your game halfway through.. My wife and I picked this game up recently and really enjoyed it! It was an adjustment in our thinking to accommodate the rules and scoring sure, but after a few lines of play we got the hang of it. We even brought in a friend the next day and she picked it up in about 4-5 minutes as well. Iota definitely presents the players with many strategic choices, since any two cards can play together. They question is not IF you can play a card, but rather WHERE it is best to play it. I suppose too, that if you had played all the way through you would quickly see why the cards had to be so small - the board can become really quite large! Since there are no board restrictions like Scrabble, if the cards were any bigger, the game would easily fall off the table! I guess they didn't need the tin to be that small, since those cards would fit in just about any box, but you can't quite blame them for the marketing ploy either. After all, they got you to try it! My advice for the viewers is: if you enjoy being challenged to change your perspective or think in unusual ways and would enjoy a lighter strategic game, give this one a shot! We've found that it works best with 2-players, but also scales alright.
A typical game of Iota ends up with a grid of cards approx. 13x13 cards. The cards are 5cm across. Thats 65cm square. Decent sized table space required. Hanabi cards are approx are approx 9cm long & 5cm wide. 13x13 means the table would need to be 1.17m long. Nearly twice the size. Suddenly that's a massive game! They're not "small cards" they're "thin tiles". That's why it's in a tin that size.
This game grinds to a halt toward the end when the combinations are harder to figure out. Like Qwirkle, you will have runs/lots that are unsolvable. I carry a small bag of gems to mark off unsolvable runs/lots and it really helps a lot because you can just pass over those ones when you are trying to figure out your next move.
It's a shame you stopped your game halfway through.. My wife and I picked this game up recently and really enjoyed it! It was an adjustment in our thinking to accommodate the rules and scoring sure, but after a few lines of play we got the hang of it. We even brought in a friend the next day and she picked it up in about 4-5 minutes as well.
Iota definitely presents the players with many strategic choices, since any two cards can play together. They question is not IF you can play a card, but rather WHERE it is best to play it. I suppose too, that if you had played all the way through you would quickly see why the cards had to be so small - the board can become really quite large! Since there are no board restrictions like Scrabble, if the cards were any bigger, the game would easily fall off the table! I guess they didn't need the tin to be that small, since those cards would fit in just about any box, but you can't quite blame them for the marketing ploy either. After all, they got you to try it!
My advice for the viewers is: if you enjoy being challenged to change your perspective or think in unusual ways and would enjoy a lighter strategic game, give this one a shot! We've found that it works best with 2-players, but also scales alright.
FistaCuffLinks good points!
It helps if you'e familiar with Set. In fact, you can play a variant of Set with the cards as well as the regular "symbolic Scrabble"/Qwirkle.
A typical game of Iota ends up with a grid of cards approx. 13x13 cards.
The cards are 5cm across. Thats 65cm square. Decent sized table space required.
Hanabi cards are approx are approx 9cm long & 5cm wide.
13x13 means the table would need to be 1.17m long. Nearly twice the size.
Suddenly that's a massive game!
They're not "small cards" they're "thin tiles". That's why it's in a tin that size.
fyi, definition of "iota" == extremely small
This game grinds to a halt toward the end when the combinations are harder to figure out. Like Qwirkle, you will have runs/lots that are unsolvable. I carry a small bag of gems to mark off unsolvable runs/lots and it really helps a lot because you can just pass over those ones when you are trying to figure out your next move.
Also it's really hard to play go back to Qwirkle after playing Iota and not think you can make an all color/ all shape run.
Thanks for your review! Don’t think I will be getting this one. 😜
Why not qwirkle travel addition.
Qwirkle cards!
It's Qwirkle!!!