I'm not a fan of reviews that
describe exactly how to play the game. I find them long-winded,
rather boring and I generally avoid reading them. However, with
Blokus it's practically impossible to describe the game
without recreating the rules, they're that simple. 
Each player has a set of 21 plastic tiles
rather similar to the pieces in Tetris. At the start of the
game each player places a piece on their corner of the board. Each
subsequent turn you place any one of your tiles on the board so that
it touches any of your own pieces at a corner only. (You
cannot place tiles such that two of your own pieces share a common
edge.) Note the emphasis—there is no restriction against placing
tiles next to any of your opponents' tiles. The object is to place as
many of your tiles as possible.
That's it and so you might immediately think this is in the family of connection games such as Hex or Twixt. Since the tiles also are also rather reminiscent of the pieces in Cathedral you might be excused for thinking that Blokus simply rehashes old ideas but you'd be wrong in this assessment . The thing that really makes it unique is the restriction on placing your tiles. Since they must touch at the corners only, you do not create solid barriers as you do in conventional connection games. Rather you have a very "porous" wall that opponents can (often easily) move through. It's this very simple innovation that makes Blokus unique and worthwhile.
When playing, the first thing that new players will attempt to
do is carve out a section of the board for themselves. It will not
take long to realize that this is usually futile, it's simply far
too easy for an opponent to maneuver around and get into your
"rear". 
Further, you'll find that there are often very few
tiles you can fit into "your" area—your own tiles are
far more restrictive to you than are your opponents' tiles.
Therefore it's usually the better move to expand into new areas
rather than trying to block an opponent. This does not mean that
blocking does not occur but it happens more often when two players
"gang up" on a third. If these two players are placing
tiles in a very compact manner they can completely block a section
of the board. This means that it's crucial to place tiles so that
you have access to as many sections of the board as possible.
Where the game gets really tricky is when you are presented with
several such situations at once, fighting different players on
different sections of the board.
This also presents the biggest problem with Blokus and that's the fact that it's multi-player and suffers from many of the same problems that all multi-player abstracts do—if several players "attack" a single opponent, then there's very little effective response possible. You will do poorly if all your opponents move into "your" region of the board. The reason this can be such a problem in Blokus is that such attacks are often incidental. In the mid-game most of your moves will have both offensive and defensive components—you'll try to place tiles that increase your subsequent placements as well as limiting your opponents'. However, it's sometimes easy to make a move that you think is fairly innocuous but completely blocks one player from half the board. There can be a real sense that you're being picked on even though your opponent's are merely thinking of their own situation. Of course, this is a game and so such moves must be accepted but there is a feeling of brutality when you're mathematically eliminated only six or seven moves in. Fortunately, the quick playing time lessens the sting of this but you really need to accept that such things may happen and approach the game light-heartedly. If this is difficult, I'd recommend only playing Blokus as a two-player game where this "bug" becomes a "feature".
Graphically, the game is very
pleasing. The board is silver coloured and the translucent tiles
are bright and vivid. I quite often played Blokus in public
places and it was common for people passing by to stop and
comment. The tiles fit nicely on the board and are fairly secure
as there's a raised grid that keeps them in place.
Blokus is one of those rare games that has a rather addicting quality, very often there's a desire to play "just once more". There's something about a really clever play that blocks your opponents while opening up lots of future moves that is very satisfying. In fact, that really sums up Blokus—very satisfying.
- Greg Aleknevicus
