Shifting Stones is another Gamewright game, so I was confident it would be a winner and I was right! If your family enjoys lots of logic and a little luck, then you definitely want to check out Shifting Stones.
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Playing Shifting Stones
This game is composed of nine double-sided tiles and a bunch of cards. Shuffle (as best you can) the tiles and place them out in a 3×3 grid. Remove the cheat-sheet cards and give one to each player; the starting player gets the darker one. Shuffle the rest of the cards and deal out 4 to each player. Players can look at their cards but don’t show them to others.
There is only one tile that is yellow on one side and black on the other. There are three of each purple/turquoise and grey/green tiles and two orange/red tiles.
Each card shows an arrangement of 2 or more tiles. You can discard a card to flip a tile over or to switch two adjacent tiles (not diagonal). Once one of your cards matches part of what is on the board, play the card to get the point(s) printed at the top. Cards are worth between 1 and 5 points. There aren’t very many of the 5-point cards and they’re really hard to get, but the lower point cards are easier.
Some of the cards in Shifting Stones.
Finishing the Game
Once a player gets a certain number of cards (varies based on how many players there are), that signals the last round. Finish to the right of the first player, so everyone gets the same number of turns. Each player can add up their points, and the most points wins.
The cheat sheet cards show what is on the other side of each tile so you don’t have to guess or remember, but it is harder to see what is possible when you need to flip tiles over. One of the hardest parts was not pre-planning. We’re used to planning our next turn while everyone else has their turn, but so much can change from one turn to the next that this is really impractical.
The card on top was discarded to switch the turquoise and purple tiles on the right.
Overall, this was a fun, relatively quick game. While not cooperative, it wasn’t cutthroat, either. It exercised our brains, spatial reasoning, and working memory, but was a lot of fun. We didn’t end up brain-dead like after some logic games, either.
Play the card on the right to get one point.
