Ingenious Extreme

Ingenious Extreme delivers the same clean‑cut strategic feel of Ingenious, but cranks up the difficulty by swapping the hex‑based dominoes for tiles made of two joined octagons and adding two extra colors, for a total of eight. Each player starts with a rack of six tiles; on their turn they place one tile onto two empty octagon spaces on the board. Scoring occurs for each half of the tile: you earn one point in that color for every adjacent octagon of the same hue and for every octagon in a straight line outward, checking seven directions from each half (you never look back through the other half).

The twist is that the final score isn’t the sum of your best colors but the lowest‑scoring one. You must keep all eight colors in check, preventing any from lagging too far behind. When a color reaches 13 points, you immediately take another turn, which can swing the game fast. After the turn you refill your rack to six tiles; if you have no tiles containing your current lowest‑scoring color, you may discard the whole rack and draw six fresh tiles from the bag.

The game ends when no more tiles can be placed or when a player hits 13 in every color. Players then compare their lowest scores, and the highest low score wins. A typical session lasts 30‑45 minutes, supports 1‑4 players, and carries a light weight (2/5), perfect for fans of quick, thoughtful decision‑making without a steep learning curve. Components are sturdy, with thick cardboard tiles and a board large enough to accommodate the eight colors. In short, Ingenious Extreme is a colorful puzzle that demands foresight and constant balance.