Quarto review — Tic Tac Toe, but like way harder

What if you took Tic Tac Toe, made it have sixteen different pieces and four ways to win, but your opponent picked your pieces for you? Well you’d have Quarto.

Quarto is a two player abstract game by Blaise Muller that takes Tic Tac Toe to the next level. The goal of the game is to get four pieces in a row with at least one characteristic in common. Each piece has four different characteristics: height, shape, color, and top surface. Pieces can be tall or short, square or round, light or dark, and hollow or flat. Sounds pretty easy right? Well the final element of the game is that your opponent chooses your piece for you each turn. BOOM. Is your mind blown?

Quarto has that classic game look and feel that would make it right at home at a coffee shop table or sitting out on a side table in your living room. The board is weighty and the pieces are all wooden. It also includes a (not very nice) cloth bag to hold all of the pieces if you did want to have this sitting on a table ready to play rather than in the traditional board game box. It looks great on the table, but I really dislike a small abstract game like this taking up the real-estate of a full size game on my shelf.

I love two player abstract games. Pitting yourself against the mind of one other person within a game that isn’t overburdened by rules and systems is truly why I love board games and why I chose to review Quarto. On the surface, Tic Tac Toe, but more, probably isn’t enough to pull most people in, but Quarto is more, a lot more. Having the players choose pieces for their opponent to play is what makes the game so interesting. That seemingly simple decision takes the strategy to a whole new level. It’s easy to plan your own moves, but how can you account for what another person is thinking? Can you bait them into setting you up for the win? Did you see there were already three short pieces in a row when you handed them that short piece just now? Did you notice that you just gave them a light colored piece so they can’t complete a row of dark pieces they’ve been working on, but it was also the last square piece and now they just won with a row of squares that you had meant to set up for yourself?

That exact scenario actually happened to me. You can see how this gets complicated. The first few turns are easy decisions, but as the 4×4 grid board fills in, it gets increasingly harder to keep track of all of the possibilities in the sea of different shape and size and color pieces. Quarto is simple but with great depth and choosing your opponent’s piece lets you feel clever until you mess it up or they outsmart you. While it wouldn’t be my first recommendation in the genre, it’s a solid entry and fun for a few quick rounds.

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