Mariko
by Mad Data

  Match neighboring tiles in this ancient chinese board game. Fill up the board as much as possible with stones, each of which can be placed only adjacent to a stone that shares either its color or its name. Like all great board games, Mariko´s concept is deceptively simple, but offers a deeply complex and challenging experience. You are given a set of 72 tiles, each marked with a specific color and figure. The stones are presented one at a time, and you place them on a board with 96 slots, next to other matching pieces. The more stones that your stone touches, the more points you earn for that stone. The basic idea of matching tiles is enhanced with restrictions on the types of matches possible. Tiles are matched by color and figure, with the elusive four-way match being the best play (match two by color and another two by figure). The game is won by making the highest score possible, but you will quickly find other goals to achieve, such as using all the tiles or scoring four-way matches around the starting board. Mariko is proof that a game does not need many rules to be sophisticated. The concept is simple, yet each new move offers a wealth of possibilities to be explored, making this a perfect entry for the deep-thinking strategist.

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