Callisto
Designed by: Reiner Knizia
Callisto is an abstract game of trying to place as many of your pieces as possible on a shared board.
Each player has a number of polymino-shaped tiles, and three towers in their own colour. At the start of the game, everyone will place two of their towers on the board, and subsequently you can place a tile on each turn next to either of your towers, or any piece of your own colour. You can optionally spend a turn placing a third tower.
The round will end when nobody can legally play any further, and anyone with leftover tiles gets a point per ‘node’ on their tiles – points are bad! Play as many rounds as there are players so everyone gets a turn going first, and then the player with the lowest score is the winner!
Sam says
It looks to be inspired by the million-selling Blokus, but Callisto has enough distinction to be a worthy addition to the abstract canon. Whereas in Blokus pieces connect diagonally, in Callisto you must be orthogonally adjacent. In Blokus, you start laying pieces from a corner, whereas Callisto gives you the towers – including the tactical option of a third. Something about this game feels a little more dastardly – especially with multiple players, where someone can find themselves cut out of large areas. I’m not by default a huge fan of abstract games, but I enjoy this one.
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Take That!
Plenty. The entire game is basically trying to foil your opponent as you push out across the board, trying to rope off territory for yourself.
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Fidget Factor!
While the challenge is a little thinky, it’s not horribly overwhelming and turns tend to come around reasonably fast – especially with two players.
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Brain Burn!
The goal is twofold: get as many pieces down as you can, and prevent the opposition doing likewise. If you can marry those two needs, you’re onto a spatially-aware winner.
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Again Again!
With the best will in the world, Callisto does not feel like a game that has variety hard-baked into its identity. But only takes 20 minutes, and you need your wits about you for them.
