Showing posts with label micropul. Show all posts
Showing posts with label micropul. Show all posts

Sunday, December 02, 2007

micropul

Those of you who notice my double entendres will appreciate the great restraint I show by not commenting on the name of this game in relationship to the name of my blog. If you just want to play a quick little solitaire game, this is a great choice.


Although I'm gradually buying and playing all of the top-ranked abstracts, I haven't yet made it to micropul at number 60 (I'm still working on Aton at number 20). It's a print-and-play game which Secret Santa was kind enough to print and cut for me.

I didn't quite follow the rules the first or second time I read them, but half-way through a solitaire play they started to make sense. Of course then I realised I'd been following the wrong strategy - I was revealing all tiles in my supply when it's probably more valuable to leave them unrevealed.

I'll explain the scoring of the game above. See if you can follow this. I claimed (with a green dot) a group of 20 white micropul - 20 points. Also, a group of 20 black micropul, and a group of 14 white. As the groups are closed, i.e. cannot be further expanded, that's 54 points. I get two points for each face down tile in my supply (another 16), and one point for each face up tile in my hand (another 2). That's a score of 72 which the rules describe as "normal". Pah! Well, at least they didn't say I was a beginner. If I'd realised I could often make more points by leaving a tile face down than by playing it, I wouldn't have drawn so many. I'll know for next time.

Congratulations on the great idea, Santa!