Waddle

Penguins are flightless, formally dressed, and deeply unreasonable about fish.

Corné van Moorsel's design drops a colony onto a hex board of ice and open water and asks you to arrange yours into groups worth having. Groups on land — waddles — score for size. Pools of water score for whoever has the most beaks pointed at them. It belongs to AllPlay's one-minute-to-teach line, and it earns the label: the rules fit on a beer mat and the box is open and playing inside a minute.

The whole game turns on a two-column track and a handful of marbles. On your turn you either place a penguin and move your marble to the top of the same column, or you place nothing at all and scout ahead, parking your marble on the other column to seize a better position later. Giving up a turn to buy the right one is the entire tension, and it stings every time you do it. Twenty-five minutes at the outside, and it plays cleanly at two.

Perfect for: Anyone who has stood at a buffet doing arithmetic about which queue moves faster, then joined the wrong one anyway.

2–5 players | 15–25 minutes | Age 8+

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