13

Staying in an old farmhouse in France we have found this game. unknown game image 1 unknown game image 2 There is a 4x4 board with 8 black and 8 white pieces. Does anyone know what this game is called and more importantly how to play it.

AlexC
  • 1,028
  • 7
  • 17

2 Answers2

17

That looks like a set of Quarto to me. There are eight dark/eight light pieces, eight tall/eight short pieces, eight round/eight square pieces and eight pointed/eight flat pieces. Usually the fourth attribute is hollow/solid, but the game works in exactly the same way with pointed/flat.

To play the game start with all the pieces off the board, and the first player chooses a piece for the second to place. After it's placed, the second player chooses a piece for the first player to place. Play alternates in this way until a player places a piece that creates a set of four in a straight line that all share a characteristic (e.g. four round pieces in a row). The first player to make four in a row wins.

tttppp
  • 9,323
  • 5
  • 45
  • 84
  • 4
    Note that the color of the piece doesn't correspond to a player as you might instinctually think. Both players choose from a common pool and color is just one of the characteristics. – Argyle Aug 19 '14 at 01:36
  • 1
    It's also a delightfully fun game. It's very quick to play, and you can go through quite a few rounds in an evening. – Simon Rose Aug 19 '14 at 18:58
  • I'm presuming this is a custom or limited edition version. Probably custom. It's really really sweet looking. – LovesTha Jan 23 '16 at 07:07
2

The game is called Gobblet (rules PDF).

Players (2 only) alternate placing (and then shifting already placed) pieces on the board attempting to be first align 4 gobblets (ie pieces) in a row, either horizontally ,vertically, or diagonally.

Players start with only the 3 largest pieces each, and larger pieces can gobble-up smaller ones (of either the opponent or it's own colour).

Esoteric Screen Name
  • 229
  • 1
  • 6
Forget I was ever here
  • 11,932
  • 20
  • 40
  • I have never heard of Gobblet, but after viewing some pictures and reading about how it is played, I am beginning to think that Quarto is a derivative work and that maybe both games could be played with the same set of pieces. – Pow-Ian Aug 18 '14 at 18:01
  • 4
    Gobblet requires pieces which nest in order to work. The pieces in the photo don't nest. I have copies of both Gobblet and Quarto, and while they're both attractive wooden-pieced games they most definitely don't use the same pieces. – Argyle Aug 19 '14 at 01:00
  • 1
    @Argyle Thanks for that piece of info, it was not obvious to tell them apart visually. After reading your comment I saw this, which helped. –  Aug 19 '14 at 11:27