Thrift Treasure: CirKis
By now you’re probably wondering why our daughter is holding what looks to be two copies of the same game. Well, it IS two copies of the same game and comes with an interesting story. When we find games at yard sales or thrift stores, even if we have plenty to write about for SahmReviews, we still pick up ones that are new to us or look different enough that we want to eventually try it out. We found our first copy of CirKis back in March at our local Goodwill. While all the pieces were there, we did have one problem. It was the Spanish version of the game! Since it wasn’t a word or trivia game we figured we could simply find the rules online and still enjoy it.
Fast-forward a couple months and we still hadn’t gotten around to playing it when we came across another complete copy, this time in English. Because of the unique look of the game in general, we decided to get it also so there would be no question on how to play. It would also be fun to compare the manufacturing quality between the copies to see if we noticed any differences. We did. Both are basically the same quality-wise, but the color hues of the pieces and game board are quite different. This could be attributed to different manufacturing batches, but the colors were so different we had to wonder if it was done on purpose or not. The Spanish version had bright, primary colors while the English version was much more subdued and neutral. We preferred the brighter version, so a quick swap of the games gave us the brightness we liked along with the English instructions!
CirKis is a piece placing board game, for two to four players, invented by Phil E. Orbanes and developed by Winning Moves Games USA in 2009. It received the French Game of the Year Award for 2009. The game is based on Penrose tiling, which is a non-periodic tiling generated by an aperiodic set of prototiles. (Yeah, that’s a mouthful and from Wikipedia, not me.)
In layman’s terms, you take turns placing pieces of your color on the board (must touch a previous piece) trying to “capture” circles and stars in the pre-defined layout. A very similar strategy to a previous Thrift Treasure from a couple weeks ago, Tangle, where your play is as important as which pieces you and your opponent have left in their inventory.
Capturing circles and stars award you points, with the first to reach 40 winning the game. Although advertised for 2-4 players, it is much more fun with at least 3. A typical game will last about 15-30 minutes, and also like Tangle, is very easy to learn but will be difficult to master.
As the board fills up, path selection becomes critical and allows for quick swings in the score. You’ll find yourself sacrificing position to set up another play a few turns later (hopefully). CirKis is rated for ages 8+ simply due to the strategy involved, but could be enjoyed by younger kids as well as long as they are playing someone of equal ability.
You can find CirKis on Amazon by both Hasbro and Winning Moves for around $10 shipped. Pay attention to which version you purchase, usted no quiere comprar accidentalmente el equivocado!
This is such a great way to not only enjoy games but to learn other languages as well. I love the idea of having games in Spanish and English.
I love it when you have the opportunity to teach our children different languages and when they play it makes it more interesting!
Ohh how fun. I had a similar game growing up and loved it. I bet your girls had a blast. I should move in with you guys, you always have the best games.. your game room must be AWESOME. Thanks for another great review and a great find that will go on the Christmas list for my princess.
This seems like a great game to play! I would love to play this with my daughter, fun and educational.
This looks like a game my son would enjoy. We enjoy playing games too.
I am an avid thrift store and yard sale shopper. My college age daughter is a board game collector, so I am always on the lookout for family friendly games. Cirkis looks like lots of fun. I am glad you were lucky enough to score the English version to compliment the Spanish version,
I like games like that where you have to use strategy. I’m interested too in why the colours are different. Write the company and let us know what they say!
Looks like a great game! I love to save games for rainy or snowy days as a nice diversion from screen time.
This looks like another of the games that would slowly drive me crazy until I mastered it! It will certainly help with anyone’s concentration skills!
It sounds like you lucked out with the same games. I do find it odd that the they had different colors for the pieces though and you wouldn’t think they would be. I am going to have to look for this game because it looks like it would be fun.
This looks like a fun game to play. I haven’t heard of it before today. Thank you for sharing.
I’ve never heard of this board game before, it looks interesting.
We’ve been trying out a lot of new games also. I totally love how you got two of these in English and Spanish! Buenos tiempos para ser tenido por todos!
How interesting that the English and Spanish versions had different colors. I wonder about the psychology that…..the why!
What a fun game! I bet we’ll have tons of fun playing with this. 🙂
That really looks a lot like a game I played with the kids when they were younger. I like the one with the bright colored pieces too. I love finding new games at our thrift stores but it’s gotten harder now since one of them stopped carrying toys and games. I still search for them though!
Cool game. I miss not having young kids to know about fun things like this. I love games, and am learning Spanish, so this looks like a blast for me. 🙂
What a wonderful and colourful game. Looks like lots of fun.
We used to play games a lot more often than we have the last couple of years. This looks fun because it’s a visual game which I’m much better at.
That looks like a lot of fun! I love Hasbro’s games.
What a very unique but effective way to learn another language. I like that this game is visual instead of some of the games that are out there today. Thanks for sharing.
Never heard of this game before but found it very interesting read… Great post..
Love the board game because it is logical. It teaches where to place pieces. If we keep that in order then we will learn how to keep other things in life organized and you will see it is what it is..
Lawrence Bergfeld
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