Real Women of Gaming

Hello, hello all! Hulyen here with another article about a game I’ve been enjoying with my play group!

Crokinole is a dexterity flicking game from the wonderous land of Canada for either two players or two teams. Split up the pieces by color, and choose someone to go first. On their turn, a player takes a piece, places it on the outermost line on the board keeping it within their quadrant, and flicks it. A piece that ends up touching the outermost line, or bounces off the backboard of the gutter is eliminated and moved into the gutter surrounding the board. If there are one or more opposing color pieces on the board, you MUST interact with an opposing piece or the flicked piece must be removed from the board. Play continues until everyone has taken turns and are out of pieces. If you manage to land a piece in the button in the middle, it’s taken off the board and set aside for a guaranteed 20 points!

At the end of the round, pieces are scored and points are awarded differentially (subtract the points from the higher score total for the round.) Play continues with the next player clockwise starting the next round until a team reaches the winning total score (we’ll usually play to 200 and then swap out players- our group has 5, so we take turns sitting out for a round. I promise this game is as much fun to watch as it is to play!)

Crokinole boards vary in quality from very inexpensive plastic to high quality custom wood. The one we’ve got I’d call a mid quality board: laminated plywood with decent quality pucks. We’re quickly outgrowing it (and beating the snot out of it as we play), but it was perfect to start with and make sure we enjoyed the game before investing in a nicer board! We’re planning on all chipping in and picking out a board with better quality wood, pieces and inlay so we can continue playing and ending up with pieces everywhere in the dining room for years to come!

Warning: Crokinole is highly addictive. Everyone I’ve taught it to and played with has immediately started considering if they had funds and space for a board of their own. (Cat scorekeeper not necessarily recommended, but Nila did her best!)

What’s your favorite dexterity game to bust out with friends and family?