Last week we had a quick look at playing cards online, this week
we are going to look into another game played online but this one's not
your normal online game.
I was looking for somewhere to take the kids last weekend
and we settled on Puzzlewood in Greytown.
John and Rose Bull came up with the Puzzlewood theme after
visiting similar places in Australia and here in New Zealand.
The complex has all sorts of interesting things, from holograms
to puzzles, needless to say my children loved it and didn’t want to leave.
You can read all about Puzzlewood at http://contact.net.nz/users/puzzlewood.
What amazed me most is the shop and the sheer scale of puzzles
and games you can buy and among them I found a tile game called Tantrix.
Don’t be alarmed if you have never heard of the game before,
neither had I until I came upon it at
Puzzlewood.
This easy-to-learn game can be played anywhere, all you have
to do is have room enough to lay down some flat tiles.
The game was invented around 1987 by Mike McAnaway right here
in little old New Zealand, but has become a world-wide hit.
Now, via the Internet, you can play the world championship
online at http://www.tantrix.com.
But that’s not all, you can play online all year round in
much the same format as the Spite and Malice card game I told you all about
last week.
You can register online for free as a player or just go in
as a guest. You will end up in a lobby where you can chat with other players
from around the world, pick a table and play one of them or choose to play
against the computer.
Like I said once in the lobby you can chat with other players
and a few I met gave me some information.
The second annual World Team Tantrix Championship is taking
place at the moment with 24 teams comprising five players each from
13 different countries.
One of the players in the tournament, who goes by the name
of Mighty, was in the chat room while I was there and gave me the rundown
on the competition. By the way he is ranked 18 out of the 332 who have
played in the world tournaments, so if you see him, play him in a room
that doesn’t effect your online
ranking.
I guess it works the same as Spite and Malice, lose a game
and your ranking goes down, win one and it goes up. These guys had rankings
in the 900s which is very good. If you join today your ranking will start
at 500.
Another player I met was Fear, he has the ranking of 988
and is playing very well at the moment.
As for me, I think I’ll stick to Spite and Malice but for
those of you with the taste for puzzle games here’s a website I found that
can give you a few tips to get started.
http://www.andromeda.com/people/ddyer/tantrix/TantrixTips.html
is designed to help those who are new to playing the game online, with
tips and tactical guides but even this site says experience is the best
teacher. Practise and learn.
Other Tantrix related websites could be found at http://tantrix.co.uk
and http://www.tantrix.com.au.
If you missed last week’s column on Spite and Malice and
are interested in reading all about it after my comments in this column,
then visit my website at http://gavin.wise.net.nz,
go to the story index page, scroll down to the last couple and you’ll find
it there.
Well, that’s it for another week, have fun and most importantly,
don’t get beaten.
Till next week, happy surfing.
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