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We love playing fun quick traditional games like Connect 4 with our almost 8 year old son. Set up in seconds, played in a few minutes, and always time for one more round. Plus, I don’t know if it is just us but every scrap of paper in our house seems to be fair game for a noughts and crosses battle! So when we saw ORBITO by FlexIQ and Coiledspring Games, we were very excited!
Balls!
ORBITO is essentially the 3D 4-in-a-row game we all know (and have most likely played eleventy billion times!). BUT, unlike noughts and crosses of old, there's no pen or paper here. In their place are GORGEOUS weighty, shiny BALLS....and....wait for it......wait for it...........you can MOVE your opponents' balls!
Yup, no longer are you stuck working around their Xs or Os! How?? Well, before I tell you, do bear in mind that your actions don’t happen in a vacuum. So, when you move your opponent’s balls, you’ll also be moving yours! And the “how” is cool; you press a button at the end of your turn which MOVES ALL THE BALLS COUNTER-CLOCKWISE!
Keep On Rolling
The rules for ORBITO are super easy to learn, and they happen in 2/3 incredibly quick stages;
1. Move an opponents' ball to an adjacent spot (optional);
2. drop your ball into any available spot (mandatory); and
3. press the centre button and watch all the balls shift one space counter-clockwise (mandatory)!
And it sounds simple because it is simple. BUT getting 4 of your BEAUTIFUL BALLS to line up when you've got someone sneakily shifting one around and a 3D table moving everything around one space is spatially challenging in a great way!
FlexIQ have recently brought out a range of games that focus on 6 key skills: (1) focus and refocus, (2) making connections, (3) changing perspective, (4) considering multiple options, (5) working memory, and (6) problem solving. And ORBITO is designed to exercise these as well as your forward thinking and strategic switching skills. And for my money, it gives me a mini mind workout with few components and minimal rules in a very short space of time!
Final Thoughts
We think ORBITO introduces a great mix of planning and problem solving in a light, fast playing, filler game package. You can plan where you want to drop your balls. And you can plan where you want to send your opponents’ next. But with all the pieces moving each turn, you’ve got to remain flexible and adapt to change! It's the second FlexIQ game we have played (TAKAMACHI being the other one), and my gaming-parent side loved the focus on brain-boosting skills combined with good old-fashioned fun! Okay so ORBITO isn’t radically innovative,a dn won’t keep you at the table for hours. But it’s not intended to. And neither does it simply re-invent the wheel. ORBITO adds a clever twist that makes the original game much more strategic and fun.
The components are great too! The plastic table is sturdy, and the balls are lovely and weighty. I also like the fact that it is pre-built and sits nicely in the box ready to be lifted out and played instantly – no set up required!
We have had a few games that have ended up in stale-mate where all the balls are on the table and there's still no winner. But the game has one further trick up its sleeve. In that case, one player (me! me!) gets to PUSH THE BUTTON 5 TIMES and whoever's balls line up first is the winner! If there's still no matchy-matchy after that switch-up then it's a draw! I can’t confess to being smart enough to plan my last turn to take into account a 5 button push scenario. And that’s okay because it adds a little bit of the exciting unknown when a game goes down to the wire like that!
Some games of ORBITO have also played out a little faster than the suggested 10 mins but that's definitely not when I play! Being neuro-spicy, ORBITO took me less than 30 seconds to learn but will take me a lifetime to master! ORBITO is light, quick, and one of those games in our house that anyone can pick up and play. The only thing is; as soon as it finishes, someone wants to go again (me! me!).
