I came across Tinker Tactics today, and was intrigued with the low component count and simple rules. All that’s needed to play are a few dice, and a tiny board for each player.

The rules are simple. Players roll their dice in secret, announce their total score, and all the other players switch their die faces to match the player with the highest score. The dice are then placed on the boards, and the boards of all the players are attached. From there players move their dice the number of spaces as indicated on the die. Land next to another player’s die to reduce it by 1. Reduce a die to zero and remove it from the board. Last player standing wins.

Tinker Tactics is free to print-and-play, and cheap enough to do so simply. I’ve already printed out some boards and gathered the appropriate dice for a 2 player game.

I can see this being a nice filler to play with the kids when we don’t have much time to get into something more involved, or when we don’t have much space to pack a larger game when we’re out of the house.