Jati
Designed by <PERSON>, and not quite published by 3M. Later published in Spielbox.
Note - all pictures included in this review are from BGG or other sites. My photography skills aren't nearly this good.
The Game
First, I suppose I should establish my authority (ha!) to write about Jati. There are 19 plays of the game recorded on BGG; I don’t record my plays, but if I did that number would nearly double, as I’ve played the game 17 times. Of course, having said that, I’m sure that at best I'm a mediocre Jati player. There’s just so few people who actually play Jati that there are no experts.
Jati is one of a very small set of games which is principally famous for its lack of availability. Oddly, as hard-to-obtain games go, Jati shows up with a reasonable frequency on ebay, appearing about once every 4-6 months. They do not go cheaply, however; most sell for around $500.
Of course, to _play_ Jati, you don’t need to go spend $500. As <PERSON> noted back in 1965, the game can easily be played with paper and pencil. Or, if you prefer, you can search out the 1986 edition of Spielbox which printed the game. So how does one play Jati?
Well, first you have to decide which version of the game you’re going to play. The 1965 edition, on a 10x10 board, has different rules from the 1966 edition, on a 10x9 board. A detailed comparison of the rules differences can be found . Personally, I would recommend the 1966 rules:
Regardless of which rules you choose, however, the game itself is very easy to learn and play. 581
Each player has 18 colored squares, plus II and III multiplier tiles, for a total of 20. The first player plays any of their tiles on any space on the board. Turns alternate; on each subsequent turn, the active player must place one of their tiles on a space orthogonally adjacent to a tile already on the board.
Once all of the tiles have been placed, the game is scored. Using 1966 edition scoring, you look for all rows or columns of five or more tiles of the same color (potentially with the multiplier tiles interspersed) or diagonals of four or more tiles of the same color (likewise potentially with multipliers). Each line scores a base value (5 for a 5-length straight, 8 for a 4-length diagonal), with additional points for additional tiles (2 for a straight, 5 for a diagonal), and then any multiplier is applied. Whoever has the higher total score wins.
Reactions
Actually, before worrying about reactions, there’s a historical note worth mentioning. For some time (perhaps as long as four decades, though I’d guess at least a decade) there was a mistaken understanding that Jati was designed by <PERSON>. While reasonable evidence was given that the game was not designed by <PERSON>, it was only in 2008 that it became widely known that the designer was <PERSON>. A couple of copies have surfaced with <PERSON>’ signature, one of which included a newspaper clipping from the Minneapolis Tribune from December 5th, 1965, about <PERSON> - and Jati.
Having resolved the issue of the authorship of the game, how is the game? Well, it’s an abstract – there is no theme to either assist the players in learning or to interfere with the play of the game. The first thing you notice, upon playing the game, is just how little of the board is used; even on the 10x9 board, more than half of the spaces are left open. While it’s good that the game doesn’t fill the board – it keeps scoring easy, and leaves sufficient room to play through all pieces – the particular number of plays chosen consistently feels light to me. A portion of this is the result of a basic issue with this game – and many others. If, in a turn, you can only accomplish a portion of a goal, there is no guarantee that the end of the game will align with interesting moves. And, unfortunately, it’s something of a let-down when the last turn (or two, or three) offer no opportunities for scoring.
But at the heart of the game, Jati is – as <PERSON> noted in his previously referenced write-up – closely related to other connected-line games such as . (And, in fact, there’s a variant in the 1966 version of the game which is essentially , albeit on a far smaller board. 581