Tsuro: The Perfect Party Game

 

Welcome back! Good to see you! Right this way, we’re going to talk about Tsuro. It’s the perfect party game. 

What’s a party game? I never actually knew that. Let’s go somewhere scholarly. 

“ Party games are games that are played at social gatherings to facilitate interaction and provide entertainment and recreation.”

Wikipedia

Now that we have a technical definition. 

Tsuro is the perfect party game. Notice I didn’t say it was the best. I simply said “No notes”. If you don’t like Tsuro that’s nice. Something doesn’t need to be wrong with you to dislike it. 

But it is perfect. Here’s why.

First: rules are stupidly intuitive. Lay a tile down before your piece. The tile has a path. Advance your piece along that path. Other pieces advance down a path if you “accidentally” put a path before them while you’re laying a tile for yourself. You win by being the last guy on the board. 

Boom. Done. 

That alone is enough. It’s awesome. People can just play. 

But that’s not the end of it. See, most party games don’t have real consequences in the game. Points accrue, sure, but you don’t necessarily have the game funnel you. 

Tsuro funnels hard. Each tile you play creates branching paths, which takes up space on the board. You can’t get around this. Eventually you’ll find that your choices are viciously constrained. You run out of tile choices. You’re picking up the tiles of the fallen, hoping they’ll give you just one more turn. But eventually you run out of time. 

And you have to take yourself off the board. 

Most party games? They're yelling matches or mean-spirited roasts. Tsuro's elegant. Zen-like paths on a gorgeous board. A touch of strategy—block 'em, dodge 'em, pray for that perfect tile—but mostly pure, shared chaos. Everyone's in it together, watching the board shrink like a noose. 

May the best one evade it. 

"Consequences!"

And here I must leave you. If I don’t see you next week, I understand. It is no easy road.