by W. Eric Martin

I'm a big fan of Susan McKinley Ross' game Qwirkle, having played it dozens of times over the past eighteen years, including a period in which my wife, a friend, and I played all sorts of homegrown variants.

In one variant, we played with only five colors and five shapes; in another, with five colors and six shapes; in still another, we created paper tiles so that we could play with seven colors and seven shapes, adding "gray" and "spiral" to the existing categories.

For several games, we played anti-Qwirkle, with you not being allowed to repeat a color or shape in a row. That's a fun one to try since the play possibilities widen immensely. In Qwirkle, if you have a yellow circle at the end of a peninsula, you can play one of ten tiles next it: a circle in one of the other five colors, or a yellow in one of the other five shapes. In anti-Qwirkle, you can play one of 25 tiles next to it, after which each subsequent tile played narrows the possibilities until you have — as in the original game — only one choice for the sixth tile in that row.

Anti-Qwirkle is a mind-bending experience because you have to look at tiles anew and rethink how you would normally play the game. The same is sort of true of Qwirkle Flex, a new standalone game from Ross and co-designer Reiner Knizia that MindWare debuted in short supply at Gen Con 2025. (At that show, a MindWare rep said that initially the game would be for sale only on its website. I get the sense that the company is eating tariffs on games imported from China and selling only directly to cover that cost. Pegasus Spiele will release a German, French, and Italian edition of the game in Q4 2025.)

In Qwirkle, players take turns playing one or more tiles that share a characteristic, creating lines in a shared play area in which each line is all of one color or shape without a repeat. You score 1 point per tile in each line that you create or add to, with a 6-point bonus if a line contains six tiles, then refill your hand to six tiles. Once the reserve runs out, whoever empties their hand first earns 6 bonus points.

Qwirkle Flex adds a small wrinkle to the original game. Instead of having three identical tiles in each color/shape combination, the game has three different backgrounds on the three copies of each tile: white, black, and "split", that is, half-black and half-white. You play exactly the same way except that when you create or add to a diagonal line in which the tiles have the same background, you score those tiles as well. In this image:

The end of a three-player game
If you had played the orange diamond and X in the top middle, you would score 7 points: 2 for the orange line you added, 2 for the diamond line you created, and 3 for the X line you extended.


But in Qwirkle Flex, you would score an additional 8 points for three diagonal lines you created and extended:


Note that shapes and colors don't have to be consistent in a diagonal line, only the background images, so the yellow circle with the black background cuts off the diagonal line ending with the orange clover. If you can create a diagonal line with six identical backgrounds, then you score 6 bonus points, in addition to whatever else you would score.

That's the entirety of the new rules in Qwirkle Flex compared to the original game, and while a simple change, you need to play somewhat differently since points abound in this version of the game. Initially you might have a hard time "seeing" the scoring possibilities because diagonals can carry across unfilled areas. Looking at the top image above, where can you add a tile to create a diagonal line of five tiles with split backgrounds? How about two lines of five tiles with black backgrounds?

The "missing" spaces of where you can play for a points bonanza pop out for me in the original game, especially after playing more than a hundred times, but I have to examine each space closely in Qwirkle Flex. Admittedly, I've played only three times on a purchased copy — twice with two players and once with three — so I have a long way to go before I become experienced with the game.

Not everyone will want to make that effort, as with my Qwirkle-loving wife, who played twice and said she'd be fine sticking with the original game. Me, I like trying to playing efficiently and squeeze out as many points as possible, and Qwirkle Flex gives you more to consider, both for scoring and for tracking which tiles have yet to be played. You'll still have to worry about the lone blue square that could complete a line of squares, but could its background also net more points? Should you get only a few points on your turn to kill off a highly valuable space that one of your opponents might occupy? Should you flush tiles from your hand repeatedly to search for this blue square yourself?

Another variantQwirkle Flex has two unfortunate production quirks. First, I'm baffled as to why MindWare chose "split" for the third background instead of gray, silver, brown, or something else distinct from white and black. The game isn't colorblind-friendly as currently produced, so I can't imagine the concern was that one of the six colors would be mistaken for gray, thereby rendering the shapes invisible.

I initially thought the split tiles were jokers, counting as both black and white, which made for absurdly high diagonal scoring before I looked at the rules again and discovered my mistake. Also, the split tiles look a mess if you don't orient them consistently in the grid, and even when ordered they're difficult to follow compared to the white and black diagonals.

Second, the backs of the tiles are inconsistent, with the black-background tiles generally having a solid black reverse side and with the other tiles having a greenish tint. The game includes a draw bag and a rack for each player, so if you use those items, the inconsistency won't be visible, but it would be nice to be able to go without them.

For more examples of gameplay and a shot of the black and green tile backs, watch this video:

Youtube Video