Tacta

• Designer: Jason Tremblay
• Publisher: The Op Games
• Players: 1-6
• Age: 6+
• Time: 5-15 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link:  https://amzn.to/3Fmk8dr
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

It’s all connected! In this sneakily strategic card game, players flip, twist, and turn their cards to align and cover their opponents’ shapes with matching squares, triangles, and rectangles. With an ever-growing board, up to 8 colors light up game night with TACTA. Analyze, strategize, and optimize because in TACTA, every card counts.

To start, give each player their deck of 18 cards (all of the same color).  These cards are shuffled and then held in your hand.  At any time, you have access to two cards – the two cards you can see on either end of your deck.  The special starting card is placed on the table.

On a turn, the active player chooses one of the two cards from their hand that they have access to and plays it to the table.  Each card has colored areas with dots in them.  One of these areas must be played onto a card already on the table.  The areas should overlap exactly, and you’ll know that you’ve done it right because the outline of the cards will be continuous.  You can flip and rotate your card however you like.  In the rare event that you choose a card that cannot cover any other card currently in play, you simply play your card to the table so that it does not touch any other card.

You cannot play a card so that it touches more than one card.  And, of course, as I mentioned earlier, the areas have to align perfectly (so that you always see the outline of all the cards in play.  It’ll make sense once you see it on the table yourself).   You cannot play a card that lies over the edge of your table either.

Play then goes clockwise around the table with each player choosing one of their two cards and laying it on top of another card already on the table.   Once all the players have played all their cards, the game ends, and each player scores.

Scoring is quite simple – add up all the dots still visible in your color. That’s your score!  There is no tiebreaker.  You can either play one hand or play to a set point total.

Once you have played the basic game, there are a number of variants in the rules to make it a bit more interesting.  You can play the game in a team format, and you can also play the game without turns!  In this speed variant, players can play whenever they like – so long as their play is legal – and the game ends whenever one player has played all the cards in their deck.  

My thoughts on the game

Tacta is an interesting abstract game with extremely simple rules.  I first encountered the game at a convention, as the Op has started making smaller handheld versions of their games as giveaways.  This promo version only had 2 player decks, but it was enough to get started and learn the game.  It only takes about 30 seconds to figure out the rules, and we played three games in a row.

In a 2-player game, there is a lot of tit-for-tat card play. Each time your opponent plays a card, the next play almost always tries to negate the higher scoring area from that card (or the highest visible scoring area).  The game moves back and forth quickly.  

One of the keys (in both a 2p and multiplayer game) is learning how to play your cards in such a way as to protect your high scoring areas.  This usually happens when other cards or the edge of the table obstructs your opponent from laying a card over your dots.   It doesn’t seem like there is a lot of planning in this game, but once you get experience, you’ll definitely learn some tricks to protect your dots… 

The cards are very brightly colored and they stand out.  This visibility is a good thing, and it looks great on the table.  It also helps you find your dots, and I wish there was a fail-proof way to score the game.  Trying to find and count all your dots can be difficult!  Usually we have each player check the score of at least one other…

For a quick abstract game, Tacta is a great option.  It can handle up to 6 players which is also nice when you’re looking for a filler or a quick change of pace.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Alan H
• I like it. Dale Y
• Neutral.
• Not for me…

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3Fmk8dr