TWO PLAYER GAMEPLAY
Gameplay in Plink is divided into two categories: “Standard” and “Variety.” At the start of each game, a game card is pulled from either the Standard or Variety deck that describes how to set up the board with blocker pieces, which moves are allowed, and the goal of the game.
Standard Play
After the board is set up, a player’s turn consists of one of the following:
1. Dropping a piece of his or her color
2. Rotating the board by 90 degrees
The goal of the game is to create one of the target shapes specified on the card. Players alternate moves until either one player wins or the entire grid fills up with pieces.
Variety Play
The “Variety Play” cards offer more adventurous versions of the game, in which the allowable moves vary from freely spinning the board, nudging pieces, or placing gates. The goal of the game can also vary from achieving a given target configuration, to ending up with the first piece on the top row of the board.
PUZZLES
The Plink board offers endless possibilities for engaging puzzles. These include abstract puzzles that require players to rearrange the pieces in a fixed number of moves, as well as more tactile challenges involving spinning or shaking the board to reconfigure the pieces. There is no limit to how challenging these puzzles can be. In fact, a famous unsolved math problem known as the “Riemann Hypothesis,” which has a $1,000,000 prize attached to it by the Clay Mathematics Foundation, can be phrased as a question about Plink!
ENCOURAGING PLAYER GENERATED DESIGN
Given the versatility of the Plink board, it’s likely that the most fun and interesting challenges for Plink will be those designed by its users. We can encourage this in a variety of ways, from including blank template cards in the set so that users can write their own variations for home play, to creating an app where users can contribute and rate puzzles and game challenges designed by others. In fact, an amazing set of puzzles have already been designed for Plink by Finnish game designers Timo Jokitalo and Vesa Timonen, creators of ThinkFun's Tilt. Encouraging players to help discover the interesting possibilities for Plink will expand the Plink universe and create a depth of engagement that is rare in the world of tabletop games.