Game Review – Take It Easy!

Take It Easy!
Number of Players	1 - 8
Play Time	20 Minutes
Ages	8 Years and up

This week I am reviewing a abstract game that is light enough to be considered a family game many people but does have a strong tactical planning element to it.  The game I am referring to is Take It Easy.

There is no theme attached to Take It Easy.  The players have a hexagonal board which is divided in to 19 hexes.  Along with the board the players receive 27 pieces that each has 3 lines going through them.  Each of the lines on the piece has a point value assigned to it.  The goal is to be able to make a line of the same point values run from top to bottom, diagonally from the left and diagonally from the right that stretches across the board.  If the player can accomplish that they can score the points the line is worth times the number of spaces in the row.  For example if a player make a line 3 hexes long that goes from one side of the board to the other where each piece of the line is worth 5 points, the player receives 15 points.

Example of Take It Easy! pieces

Game play is very simple.  One of the players is designated the caller and turns their tiles face down while the other players keep their tiles face up.  The caller turns over the pieces at a time and all the players including the caller place the same piece on their board wherever they want as long as it is not covering a piece that they have already placed and they may not move any piece that has already been placed on the board to accommodate the new piece.  After all the players have placed their piece on their board, the caller turns over the next piece and repeats the process.  Once all 19 spaces on the board have been filled, the game is over and the players count up their scores per the example above.  The player who can place the highest value of lines across their board wins the game.

Take It Easy is an easy game to learn and a quick game to play.  Each game lasts 10 -15 minutes.  I think that the game is better played over a number of rounds, usually three and the scores for each round are added up in order to even out any luck factor.

The game is ideally suited as a filler game and can be fit in at the beginning or the end of a night of gaming or even in between two heavier games.  In order to spice the game up a little, the most current version of the game has added a number of variant rules to the game so that players can change it up from time to time, but the game without the variants is good enough and worth the purchase price.

 If you are someone that likes abstract games and wants to get other players interested in possibly playing other abstract games with you, Take It Easy is a good gateway game for you to try.  It gives players the look and feel of an abstract without the deep thought or time commitment that some abstracts require.

Bottom line if you are either looking for a filler game, or a gateway abstract game, I would recommend you take a look a Take It Easy.

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