Expo '17: The Haul - Part #9

Our next item from the haul is Codinca, a tile swapping strategy game; designed by Leonard Boyd and David Brashaw, and published by Backspindle Games.

Unlike a lot of the items that i have looked at previously from the haul, Codinca is a game that I don't anticipate having too much in the way of surprises up its sleeve. It is what it is. Which is an abstract strategy game where you swap tiles in order to form the patterns present on the cards you were dealt at the beginning of the game with the tiles of your color.. And that's about it.

You do have a few special cards at your disposal each game that you can use to manipulate the tiles in ways you couldn't with the standard two actions you get a turn, but largely you're simply trying to form your patterns before your opponent does following only a couple of simple rules (or at least as I recall from my demo game), which are:

1: As an action you can flip a tile or swap it with an adjacent tile.
2: You can't manipulate the same tiles that the last player did.

Other than though, you can go about resolving your key cards (which contain the patterns that you need to form in order to win the game), in any order; and you're even free to move any piece on the board following these basic rules, including your opponents tiles.

In terms of actual gameplay this freedom can lead to instances of purposely moving tiles that give you no direct advantage, so as to make your opponent believe you're playing for a pattern that you're not; and likewise swapping tiles to prevent patterns forming that you believe your opponent is playing for.

In summary, for such a simple game that has what could be said to be the bare minimum of rules, there is a surprising amount of depth and complexity.