Board Game Spotlight: Tak

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Author: Elyss Koh'inor
Published: June 4 2019 - Tar Valon Times Blog Link

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This board game might sound familiar for fans of Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicles, as it appears in the second book of the series, A Wise Man’s Fear. Rothfuss worked with game developer James Ernest to create a real-life version of the game, and it is now available to purchase! Tak is a two-player game which can be described as having the strategy of chess and similar mechanics to checkers. However, that doesn’t tell the full story.

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The game comes with a double-sided board, one side with a five-by-five grid, and one with a six-by-six. There are also wooden playing pieces, half cream and half brown. These have flat sides that can either lay flat or stand up, as well as stack on top of each other. Each color also has one capstone, which has special abilities.

The goal of Tak is to use your pieces, called Stones, to create a road from one side of the board to the other. You can connect in any way you would like, though the pieces have to lay side-by-side, not diagonal. A player has several options when it is their turn. They can play a Stone on any square of the grid to try and build their road. They can move a stone they’ve already place, including on top of another player’s Stone to capture that stack. They can place a Wall, which is a stone placed standing on its end. This prevents the other player from taking that square of the grid, but Walls do not count towards building a road. The player can also place a capstone, which cannot be captured, counts towards building a road, and crushes walls.

Play continues until one person completes their road, or all pieces have been placed.

The game itself is well-constructed, with quality wooden pieces and a simple board design which makes it durable. The openness of game play means strategy often changes quickly, and each game feels different from the last, even when played several times with the same person. This is great since the game is a little bit on the expensive side (~$55 USD). You don’t have to be a fan of the Kingkiller Chronicles to play, but fans of the book will likely enjoy having a little bit of Kvothe’s world brought to life.