Gobblet

Gobblet (2000) is a competitive brain puzzle game like noughts and crosses or tic-tac-toe. Your aim is to create a straight row of four pieces to form a line. However, you can place your pieces over the top of your opponents to drastically change the board and tactics.

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Play involves taking turns to place pieces on the 4-by-4 board. Your pieces start nested off the board. You can either play one exposed piece from your stacks or move one piece on the board to any other spot. Depending on the size of the piece you are playing, you can play it on an empty square or over the top of an opponent's piece.

Another nice nuance is that if you lift your piece and reveal an opponent's piece that finishes their row, you don't immediately lose, you can place it over another of their pieces to let you continue. This is really helpful for younger players who make a mistake. There is a junior version, Gobblet Gobblers, that features a smaller 3x3 board and fewer pieces.

Because moving pieces is key to winning, the twist is that you need to keep track of what is under each one. This leads to all sorts of new tactics: stacking your pieces, blocking or covering opponents. In this way, you work towards four pieces in a row to win.

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Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Gobblet 24 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 10 weeks ago.