ZAG (2022)

ZAG is a visual game about solving graphic puzzles in zig-zag.

Each player has a mini-board, five double-sided tiles and a deck of cards showing visual challenging patterns to solve as fast as one can.

Each card shows a number of tiles to be placed and solve its pattern, from only two to five tiles. But don´t be fooled. Sometimes, a two piece puzzle may be surprisingly challenging.

The deck comes with tutorial cards that help players learn the tile placing rules and practice a little bit before diving into the real ZAG. First: be careful, the board has a specific orientation. Second: tiles are always placed on the board inside its limits. Third: tiles are always placed parallel to the board´s sides, so they are never placed diagonally. And fourth, tiles never overlap!

The game comes with two decks of puzzles: a beginner´s set of 12 cards with hints that show a thumbnail of each tile used to solve that puzzle. Once those cards become too easy, and one might look for a more challenging experience, there is a set of 45 cards showing only the puzzle, without any hint whatsoever.

A game of ZAG is played in rounds.
Each round, give each player a card and they have to solve it simultaneously.
When someone has finished, flip the card face down and say: - ZAG!
Wait until everyone finishes, check if the puzzles were correctly solved and earn the card as points.
After a round for each count of tiles, from 2 to 5, the game is over.

—description from designer