Tile-laying games have been a staple of the board gaming hobby for decades. Classics like Carcassonne have proven just how satisfying it can be to build something one tile at a time.

BLORP!, from Smirk & Dagger Games, takes that familiar concept and gives it a delightfully weird twist. Instead of everyone contributing to one shared landscape, each player creates their own strange ecosystem of colorful blob-like creatures called Blorps.

With colorful artwork, simple rules, and strange blob-like creatures that kids will immediately want to name, BLORP! blends approachable family gameplay with enough tactical choices to keep adults engaged.

Does it have enough staying power to earn a spot on your family’s game shelf?

How to play BLORP!

BLORP! is a tile-drafting and tile-laying game for up to 6 players where players compete to see who can score the most points by creating wacky Blorps in their play area.

At the beginning of the game, 4 tiles are placed face-up in the center of the table.

On a player’s turn, they’ll choose one of the face up tiles and add it to their personal play area. Another tile is revealed in the center and play continues to the left.

The placement rules are very straightforward. Every placed tile must touch at least one previously placed tile. And every adjacent edge must match the colors next to it. For example, a red Blorp edge must touch another red edge. The same goes for the orange and green Blorps as well as the blue open area.

As the game progresses, each player’s area will expand with more and more options.

Some Blorp tiles include white Trumpets. Think of these as tunnels that connect matching Blorps across gaps.

If two Trumpets face one another, those matching colors count as one connected Blorp, even if different colored Blorps lie between them. This creates clever opportunities to plan ahead and rescue groups that would otherwise stay disconnected.

The game continues until there are only 4 tiles left in the draw pile. That final round finishes once everyone has had an equal number of turns.

Then players score their Blorps!

• Incomplete Blorps: Score no points, so make sure your blobs are fully enclosed before the game ends.
• Player’s largest completed Blorp of each color: Score 2 points per tile.
• Player’s other completed Blorps of that color: Score 1 point per tile.
• Purple spores: A spore surrounded on its four orthogonal sides is worth 5 points. If it becomes completely surrounded on all eight sides, it earns 1 additional bonus point.
• Bonus points for largest Blorp of each color: The player with the biggest completed Blorp of each color earns 10 bonus points for that color. (Ties award no bonus.)
• Bonus points for most completed Blorps: The player who creates the greatest number of separate completed Blorps earns 10 bonus points. (Ties award no bonus.)

After adding everything together, the player with the highest score wins.

For a very fast-paced version of the game, players may choose to play BLORP! Blitz.

Instead of drafting from a shared market, each player races through their own stack of tiles, placing them one at a time as quickly as possible while still following all of the normal placement rules. If a player can’t legally place a tile, they pass it to the player on their left, who must place it before continuing. Scoring remains the same, but the frantic pace gives the game a completely different feel and adds another way to enjoy the game.

Is BLORP! a good family board game?

Absolutely.

One of BLORP!’s biggest strengths is how approachable it is. The core gameplay boils down to matching colors and expanding your own area, making it easy for younger players to understand after only a few turns. There isn’t a huge rulebook to memorize or complicated iconography to decipher.

The game is also super simple to set up. Simply mix around the tiles face down, place them in a couple of stacks, place 4 face up for drafting, and you’re ready to play.

The artwork is refreshingly fun. The Blorps themselves look like something straight out of a Dr. Seuss story—odd little blobs with trumpets.

And let’s be honest, simply saying “BLORP!” out loud never really gets old.

Yet, the game still carries some fun decisions throughout. Choosing which tile to take and where to place it brings in the light strategic element that makes tile-laying games fun. Do you grab the perfect tile to expand one of your largest Blorps? Do you claim a valuable spore before someone else does? Or do you draft a Trumpet tile that might pay off several turns later?

There’s also just enough luck mixed into the strategy. Since only four tiles are available each turn, you can’t always execute your ideal plan. Instead, you’re constantly adapting to what’s available while keeping an eye on your opponents’ growing Blorps. We generally enjoy games that strike this balance between planning ahead and adjusting on the fly, and BLORP! does a nice job of delivering that experience.

We also like that every player builds their own layout instead of competing over a shared board. While you’re still paying attention to what everyone else is building, you don’t have to worry about another player ruining your personal creation.

One thing we noticed after multiple plays is that the player count makes a noticeable difference. Although it’s great that the game supports up to 6 players, we found that 4 players is probably the sweet spot. With 6 players, the tiles you need often disappear before your next turn comes around, making it much harder to complete long-term strategies involving the Trumpets. At 4 players, your plans feel more achievable while still leaving enough unpredictability to keep things exciting.

Scoring also varied nicely from game to game, which suggests there are multiple viable paths to victory. Some players focused on building massive connected Blorps, while others chased spores or tried collecting the bonus for creating the greatest number of separate groups. That variety gives players room to experiment from one game to the next.

The only concern we have is color differentiation. The orange and red Blorps can occasionally look a little similar. Most players won’t have an issue, but those with color vision issues may find distinguishing between those colors more difficult. A little more contrast between the colors would have improved accessibility.

How does BLORP! score on our “Let’s Play Again” meter?

If our initial back-to-back-to-back plays are any indication for you, BLORP! scores well on our “let’s play again” game meter. After one game ends, it’s so simple to just shuffle the tiles and start playing immediately again.

BLORP! delivers a colorful, accessible tile-laying experience that’s easy to teach, quick to play, and engaging. Plus, the included Blitz mode offers a fun change of pace when you’re looking for something a little more frantic.

If your family enjoys tile-laying games like Carcassonne but wants something that feels lighter and sillier, BLORP! is well worth checking out.

 

The Board Game Family would like to thank Smirk & Dagger Games for the review copy of BLORP!.

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