INK – Where Color Meets Strategy

From Jackson Pollock to Piet Mondrian, abstract art has a particular style that captures the imagination in ways images cannot. What often looks like a random disbursement of ink can coalesce in our minds to look like many different things, like colored clouds or a collection of multi-colored boxes. In INK, you’ll create your own color-drenched abstract art and use up all your ink!

INK is a tile placement game by Kasper Lapp for 1-4 players. Surprisingly, this beautiful game takes only 30-45 minutes and kids as young as 8 years old should be able to play without difficulty.

Final Score Games publishes INK, but we got our copy from Asmodee, which distributes it in the USA.

How to Play

To play a game of INK, each player gets a randomly chosen palette card, a starting tile, and 25 ink bottles in their chosen color. Place 12 bottles on your palette card and 12 bottles next to the palette. The last ink bottle goes on the starting space of the Wheel, marked with an X.

Place tiles at each quill spot around the wheel. Then select two red and two blue bonus actions, placing them in numerical order on the objectives board. These determine the actions you can take when you fulfill an objective numbered 4-7.

The goal of the game is to be the first to get rid of all your ink bottles.

On your turn, move your bottle clockwise around the quill wheel to choose a tile to add to your painting. If it would take your bottle past the starting space (X), you must take an X tile and place it so it covers two spaces of your painting – at least one matching the color of the X.

After placing a tile into your painting, examine whether you have created an area where bottles can be placed. This means an objective spot and at least as many connected squares as the number on the objective.

When fulfilling an objective, place a bottle upside down on the objective number. Then, put as many bottles as you can on white spots in the connected colored area. Bottles from your palette can only be placed on the two colors matching the palette. Your other bottles are wild and you can place them on any color.

After placing bottles, take the bonus action assigned to the objective number: from adding a white spot (to place another bottle in the future), to moving bottles between areas, or even immediately taking another turn. The higher objective numbers usually have more powerful actions.

Continue taking turns until someone has placed all their bottles. Then finish the round. If a player would place more bottles than they have, they can fill out the rest with neutral black bottles. These become a tie-breaker in case multiple players would finish in this round.

The player who placed all their bottles (or placed the most black bottles) wins the game!

All By Myself

INK also has a solo mode, where you play against Sumi, an automa player. In just 8-14 turns, try to cover your painting with ink bottles while Sumi blocks a spot or objective on tiles around the wheel before each turn. I’ve found this solo mode very challenging, even at the beginner difficulty. Blocking off white spots and objectives, while turning over fewer tiles, means that you might never get the types of spots you need to empty your palette.

Impressions

INK‘s gorgeous box art and simpler vitals (age, player count, game time) belie a wonderfully dynamic and complex game. Although the rondel action is easy to understand, the variable objective powers change the game significantly from play to play. The starting space X penalty prevents players from circling the rondel too quickly which rewards careful consideration of the tiles available.

It’s certainly true that there is some luck in what tiles come out of the bag. However, this can usually be mitigated by planning multiple colored areas simultaneously.

One unique aspect of INK is that it is possible to create newly eligible areas to complete during your turn through the bonus objectives. This is a key way to jump ahead of your opponents by placing multiple sets of bottles during your turn.

INK is a very satisfying puzzle, even playing solo, that takes less than an hour from start to finish. The graphic design is stellar and the end game state creates a gorgeous abstract visage. The simple mechanics and flexibility allow this beautiful tile placement game to truly shine at all ages.

You can pick up a copy of INK directly from Asmodee, on Amazon, or from your friendly local game store.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of INK from Asmodee USA for this review.

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