Triolet

When the call went out for someone to review a ‘scrabble-like maths game from France’, I quickly decided that this was for me! I enjoy playing board games, both with my own kids at home and within ‘fun maths sessions’ at school and appreciate the educational value, as well as fun and aspect aspects, of such playing games.

So, what about Triolet? Well, it is good fun to play, requires a reasonable amount of thinking without needing specialist knowledge and doesn’t take three hours to complete.

Produced in France by DJ Games, Triolet is distributed in the UK by Coiled Spring Games, a great company specialising in similar games such as Tantrix. Triolet is not new – it won the Golden Ace Award at the 1996 International Festival of Games in Cannes – but is only just becoming well known in the UK.

The easiest description of the game is ‘scrabble with numbers’. You have a gridded board and a bag of 81 numbered tiles. The task, for up to 4 players, is to make sets of three tiles sum to 15. This is a fun way of developing mental calculation and observations skills. In addition, bonus score opportunities and the ability to score in two dimensions add a strategic and tactical element to the game, along with a keen competitive edge.

Triolet is recommended for age 8+. My own kids (aged 9 and 11) picked up the game very quickly and enjoyed playing it, whilst groups of Year 8 and Year 10 students in school had no trouble in setting up the game themselves without any support. Games take between 30 minutes and an hour.

The game arrives with simple rules in both French and English, including plenty of diagrams of example game layouts. There is also a useful website dedicated to the game, including help for schools wanting to organise Triolet tournaments. They even provide a link to the ATM website! All in all, a great addition to the games box at home and at school.

Now, who covered that Triple Points square whilst I wasn’t looking..?

Pete Lane, 2 i/c Maths and e-Learning Manager
Swinton Community School Maths and Computing College

Triolet (£22.50 incl VAT plus delivery if ordered through the website)
Distributed by:
Coiled Spring Games
PO Box 175
Clifden Road
Twickenham
TW1 4XP

<< coiledspring.co.uk

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