Go with the flow...

The first game we played at the Welcome Back Bash was Ta Yu. I (Chris) had bought this game the day before (Monday) on the way into work. I had seen it at a small game shop called "Hero Town" the day before that, and did some research -- I found that it was a highly rated game, and rather hard to find. I decided that the $60 price tag was palatable (it was helped by the fact that I had a $10 gift certificate).

Ta Yu is a simple tile-laying game, with tons of strategy. It takes about a minute to explain the rules of the game, but the gameplay proceeds with endless variety. The first thing that will grab you will be the elegant beauty of the game... long, sinewy dragons surround the border, and the thick, mah-jongg-like tiles are engraved with simple lines that represent channels of water.

The game is really designed for two players -- it can easily be played with two teams of two. You can play the game with three players -- player 3 being one intended to simply thwart the progress of the other two, which would probably introduce a strange dynamic. There is enough frustration in the two player game -- a thwarting player would probably make ones head explode.

Sean stopped by, so Chris and Sean played the two player game of Ta Yu.

One player plays in a sort of "North-South" direction, and the other plays the "East-West" direction. Each player is trying to divert streams of water in his/her directions. There is a good blend of directly (and desperately) trying to wrangle the streams in your own direction while trying to redirect the streams away from your opponents directions. There is a good blend of offense and defense.

Once there is no place for a player to lay down a tile, the game ends, and scoring begins. The person playing North-South counts the number of outlets on the North side and multiplies that by the number of outlets on the South side. The other player does the same for East and West. There are 3 spots on each side that count as two outlets.

Sean had 6 on one side and 4 on the other -- 6 x 4 = 24
Chris had 8 on one side and 8 on the other -- 8 x 8 = 64.

Chris wins!

Ta Yu -- simple, beautiful, strategic, fun. Possibly the most expensive game I've bought -- so far as I can tell, after just one game: worth every penny.