In this hectic world we live in, many times work and appointments must come before the fun and joys in our lives, including that of getting to play videogames whenever we want. Gone are the days when we could fire up a game of our choice and spend hours toiling away – now we seem to game in stolen moments here and there. With that in mind, perhaps it is no wonder that casual games have become such a popular gaming choice (especially with women who make up the vast majority of casual game players), as casual games allow us to either jump in and get those quick fixes of gaming bliss or either play them for as long as we want when we do have the time. In honor of the casual game, we'll be bringing you a new Casual Game of the Week every Monday to help you find that fix you might be needing in your life, and this week we have: Blokus World Tour

When I think of Mensa members, I think of holier than thou eggheads who are way too smart (aka they make me feel really stupid when I think myself quite intelligent at times). Though I may wish to join their elite league and hate them because I can’t, there is one thing I can’t deny about the people involved in Mensa…they have the potential to make some excellent games. So how did a board game about connecting blocks transition so well into a PC game?

Blokus World Tour is based on the original board game called Blokus, though now it’s a single-player game that has you traversing the world, taking on the greatest Blokus players there are. Going into the game I thought, “Well, it looks like we got another Tetris clone.” Of course, that was before I knew the history of the series and how a Mensa member made it their goal to make a board game based around the fundamentals of mathematics, and that there is really no connection to Tetris other than the fact that there are different shaped blocks you use. I won’t give you a history lesson beyond that, but you definitely should read up about the game once you’ve bought it, because this is most definitely game you owe it to yourself to get.

The most common game of Blokus involves four players, all having the same number and same shaped pieces, starting off at one of the corners of a perfectly square board. Each player starts by placing one of their pieces in their corner, taking turns as movement passes around the board. Once your first piece is placed, you then have to place your next piece, but your next piece (and all subsequent ones) can only ever touch the corner of one of your own pieces, never being able to ever be completely flush so that one side of one of the pieces is ever touching another one of yours; however, it’s perfectly okay for your pieces to be flush against another player’s pieces.

The goal of Blokus is to have the most points at the end of a game, which you accomplish by placing pieces on the board and gaining real estate. For example, should you place a 2x2 square, you’ll get yourself four points for placing it down. Like most strategy games, no matter if it be chess or checkers, the strategy in Blokus comes from not only trying to gain as many points as you can by being aggressive and on the attack, but by also placing pieces so you limit the amount of area your opponents have the opportunity to move in; the winner of a Blokus game is usually the last one still able to place pieces down. There are several strategies you can involve, such as placing your largest pieces down first to get them out of the way; working your way towards the center of the board before working in on filling in spaces; and even saving your smallest piece as your last placement to get some bonus points.

Blokus World Tour has you starting out as a rookie, trying to make their way around the world to be the best possible player ever. Each stop on the world tour will bring you against not only different AI, but different Blokus game types as well. Beyond the four player version of Blokus, there is also a two player version that has a smaller board than usual, and another version that has you controlling two different colors at once for your maximum score. Beyond the world tour mode, however, you’ve also got the ability to do some quick play, and even take on a series of very hard challenges, ranging from having to get so many points with all three players working against you instead of each other, and having to place every single block of every single color so that one whole board holds every piece in the game.

Graphically the game is simple, but when everything is done so well, it manages to make the simple seem anything but that. The character sketches are well-done, the boards and pieces are really bright and clean, and the menus and buttons all look nice as well. The game isn’t so much of an aural treat, but the music and sound of laying pieces is good enough to get the job done.

When I went into Blokus World Tour I went in with very low expectations, as it can be fairly hard to bring a board game to the videogame world and still have it be relevant, and beyond that I frankly had never even heard of Blokus. I soon found myself engrossed, however, and the next thing I knew an hour had already gone by and I was still playing, really enjoying the strategy and fun of the game. I only lost occasionally playing the game on the normal difficulty, but even then it gave me a run for my money from time to time, and with another harder difficulty there for your choosing, it’s easy to find yourself constantly being drawn to this game to play just one more time. The only negative I can really say about this game is that it is in desperate need of an online component, letting two players or more go against each other. If you’re looking for the next classic strategy board game, be sure you give Blokus World Tour a shot.

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