Designed by: Douglas Seaton
Polarity is a game that you don’t want near your computers, phones, or speakers. The games pieces consist of magnets, and the mechanic of the game is magnetism – both attractive and repellent.
Each player takes possession of a set of magnets with one player playing the white side and one the black. The board is actually a mat that you roll out – it doesn’t need to be uber-flat so the odd wrinkle is fine. Each player places five foundation magnets on the board and a red magnet at the centre.
On your turn you are trying to place a magnet in gravity defying position – leaning over or near to one of your foundations so that the magnetic forces at play hold it in position. Do this successfully, and you get another turn. But if the magnets snap together then your opponent can flip them over, giving themselves a new foundation in their own colour – and more points, as magnets facing your-colour-up at the end of the game decide the winner.
It’s tricky! And the game can be very swingy, with one player going from a strong position to a weak one in short order. The game ends either when either player has no more magnets to place, or the red magnet is accidentally moved from its’ central position.
There's very little your opponent can do to target you (though canny players may spot opportunities to make life more difficult for each other in how they place their magnets)
Low, unless your opponent has the steadiest hands in the world and an uncanny understanding of magnetism.
None
Who can predict the forces of attraction in Polarity? Certainly the rules are simple and the likelihood of any game panning out the same way is astronomical.
2-2
Players
8+
Years
15-30
Mins
Sam says
There's a kind of beauty when you get it right: the magnet leaning, quivering, fragile in the atmosphere as the players creep around trying not to bludgeon in and upset the delicate balance. But I'm not sure it has the inherent, turn-by-turn fun of stacking games such as Bandu or the gaming depth of an abstract like Ingenious. My own clumsiness made it an exercise in frustration, albeit the kind of frustration that leads to laughter... some will love it though.