- Learning time
- 5 minutes
- First play time
- 15 minutes
OK Play
Designed by: Deejay Wheelie Bag
OK Play (also published as Cinco Linko) is a pattern-forming game not too dissimilar to Connect Four: to win, you must place five pieces in a row vertically, horizontally or diagonally.
Everyone begins with their own set of coloured tiles, and the starting player places a piece on the table. Thereafter players one at a time add a tile of their own, that must be placed adjacent to a previously-laid tile (diagonal is not counted as adjacent for tile-laying, only for winning). This continues until someone has won, or – rather more likely – all tiles have been laid, at which point instead of adding tiles you move them. The same rules apply as above – you simply pick up one tile and move it elsewhere, with the caveat that when doing so you never split the tiles into two groups – all tiles must remain connected.
As soon as someone gets their fifth tile in a row, they win.
There is a two-players only set available too: OK Play Duel.
The guru's verdict
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Take That!
Take That!
You do need to stop the other players, so yes - although it's very abstracted and brightly coloured, there is a slightly combative flavour.
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Fidget Factor!
Fidget Factor!
Relatively low.
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Brain Burn!
Brain Burn!
Low.
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Again Again!
Again Again!
Will hugely depend on how you feel about this type of game - there's no preset linear pattern to events, but that said each play does feel very similar to the last.
Sam says
It's accessible, it's durable, you can play it pretty much anywhere as long as you have a flat surface. Some folk will really dig it for those reasons, but I wasn't hugely bowled over by OK Play: though it has a similar tactical challenge as Connect Four (hamper opponents plans, advance your own; ideally at the same time) and in some ways is an improvement, the freedom of the 'board' to evolve does have the occasional by-product of games kind of dragging on: if everyone is spotting potential winners and shutting them out, it can start to feel a little attritional. But as a decent pattern-forming game that gets you (and kids) using your brains, it ticks a box and just about gets a 3 star rating. For a similar game that has a bit more heft to it, without the rules being much heavier at all, we'd recommend Ingenious.