Tacta

Square cards printed with coloured shapes, squares, triangles and rectangles, and a layout that grows across the table with every card played. On your turn you flip and rotate a card and lay it overlapping what is already there, so your shapes cover your opponents' matching shapes and your colour links up. Every card is both an attack and a claim: what you cover disappears, and what is still showing when the cards run out is what counts. The box comes with more than one way to play, including a solo mode, and each changes what you are chasing on the table without changing the basic move. It can be taught in five minutes but is heavier than it looks for something on the party shelf; think Blokus with cards. It works well at two, is best at four, and suits a couple who want something to think about for twenty minutes.