Continuo Game

This simple game is easy enough for players of all ages. It's not too demanding so drinks and chat can continuo among the adults, it's challenging enough that most people can muster a little competitiveness and pay attention when it's their turn. Best of all, it's pretty much decided on random chance, you will only get a high score if the tiles fall right for you, so everyone gets a chance to be a winner.

Such excellent value for money. Being so quick to learn and play makes it a great game for Christmas. It was Game of the Year ages ago but it's as good now as it was then.

One of the prettiest tile-based games is Maureen Hiron's excellent 4x4 tiling game Continuo, invented in 1982.Wikipedia describes the tiles this way:"Continuo consists of 42 tiles ... [each] subdivided into a 4 × 4 grid of small squares. All of the tiles are diagonally symmetrical with an L-shape of one colour with a single small square of another in the corner. There are 4 colours in total: red, green, blue and yellow. The aim of the game is to score points by making 'chains' of colour and a point is scored for the length in small squares of each chain that the placed tile makes. A chain has to be squares that touch horizontally or vertically. No tile may overlap another so the longest chain of a single colour is of length 16."These three tiles indicate what this prose description looks like(adapted from [...] Blue and Yellow LsB All Red corners, Blue L and Yellow LC All Green corners, Blue L and Red L.Playing is very simple. The tiles are shuffled face-down. A starter tile is chosen randomly and placed face-up in the middle of the table. Players (2 to 6, with a possible solo-puzzle version, as well) take turns. In each turn a player draws a face-down card, and places it face-up, beside one or more of the tiles already played, so that all the adjacent square or squares of the tile that is placed matches the colour or colours of the adjacent square or squares of the tiles already placed. It is not necessary to connect the whole edge of the tile being played with a whole edge of a tile that has already been placed. At least one square of the tile being placed must lie alongside one square of a tile already placed, but higher scores result when as many squares as possible can be matched.Scoring is easy. The player who places a tile scores 1 point for each coloured square in a "chain" of squares of the same colour, where that "chain" includes squares from that placed tile and squares in an adjacent tile, and where the "chain" consists of successive adjacent squares of the same colour, with "adjacency" being horizontal, or vertical, but not corner-to=-corner diagonal. For example, if tile A is the Starter-tile, and the first player puts tile B down alongside, as shown, that scores 12 points - 6 for the "chain" made of two adjacent yellow three-square L-shapes, and 6 for the two adjacent blue Ls.If the second player then places tile C, as shown, at the right of tile B, the chain of two blue Ls scores 6. Alternatively, if tile C is rotated 90 degrees (clockwise? anticlockwise) and the tile is placed beneath tile B, the score would be 10 points. (How?)Clearly Continuo is easy to learn. It also lasts only 42 moves. Certainly there is luck in the random draw of each tile. But consider the spatial thinking needed to optimise that "luck". Clever game!Are there only 42 possible mathematically distinct tiles?John Gough - jagough49@gmail.com

Continuo is a must for the games shelf. Easy to play and flexible as to how long the game lasts. Just one negative, this new box has fewer playing pieces in it than my old set which is restrictive when it comes to playing with more than two players.

Bought this as a gift for our niece's son who is confined to barracks following surgery. It was a favourite of ours when our children were young and am sure it will become a favourite for them also. It is versatile in that you play to your own level so all ages can play.

We bought Continuo years ago when our children were small. It's a marvelous game as children who cannot read well enough for other games can still play this, as it relies on colour matching It gave our family hours of fun. Sadly we mislaid the old one and had trouble finding a new one. Eventually we found it on Amazon. It is also an excellent game for adults too. I would thoroughly recommend it.

This game is so simple yet strangely compelling. My daughter is 4 and mastered it straight away. In fact, she is the family highest scorer (and all the adults were playing hard!) - so it really is a game for all the family.

I enjoyed playing this game with my grandmother 30 years ago, so was looking forward to introducing my children to it. My 8 year-olds are also fans. It's simple to grasp the concept, but helps teach pattern recognition and numeracy (adding up scores), while also being fun.So why only two stars? Because the production standards on this US Games set is very disappointing. When you're paying a tenner for a set of 42 cards, the least you expect is that the cards are properly printed and cut. However, many of the edge squares are more rectangular (11mm x 14mm) than square, and the colours are inconsistent between cards. This is visually jarring and inexcusable when the whole point of the game is carefully to align the squares to make consistent patterns. It makes playing the game much harder. I've uploaded a photo showing the issue.In the end, I've returned this game and bought a second-hand original version which is perfect. What a disappointing way for a manufacturer to treat a superb game, by trying to cut corners on costs.