This was the game par excellence during Family Vacay 2009. Here is one of the many dark, blurry pictures of us playing it last year (have compassion–it was in the thick of my pre-DSLR days):

In all fairness, it was ousted from the top ranking game position during last week’s Family Vacay 2010 by “Dominion” (more about that later), however I would say that it ran a strong second. And it will pass the test of time, I’m convinced.

This game has generated a new verb: “to blokus.” As in “Dang it, don’t blokus me again!” or “Daaaaad! Luke just blokused me! It’s not faaaaair!” Luke, oh Luke. When will you learn to let others win sometimes? I think this ‘going to law school’ thing in the fall is only going to make it worse.

My cousin Luke is a brilliant Blokus player. Being an extremely competitive game player myself, I spent my post-Blokus moments last week shaking my fists at the heavens because apparently I’m missing a huge pile of brain cells–the spatial organization ones. There’s actually a little empty part of my brain where it looks like they were simply forgotten. How could that have been overlooked when I was being assembled in the human factory?? Who is the supervisor there anyway, and is the customer hotline toll-free?

Here’s Luke at this year’s Family Vacay, looking like the gaming punk he is:

Yep, I know what you’re thinking–I really overdid the green tones in my color balance adjustments in that picture up there. This may have been a subconscious effort to make Luke look as much like a monster as possible. Or it may have been a conscious effort. I’ll never tell.

Let’s cut to the chase: you really must acquire this game. Imagine Tetrus, but on a board where you’re competing for space with 3 other players. You attempt to block them while placing as many of your own weird-shaped pieces on the board as possible. Whoever places the most pieces by the time the board has filled up, wins.

I decided to photograph the progression of a game of Blokus to show you how satisfying it is–the little shapes! The little colors! Everything fitting together in a colorful, organized manner! It tickles a special part of my brain: the OCD part.

Luke’s wife Kelsey and my cousin Brianna prepare the board and distribute the pieces . . .

Brianna is very focused. Just a word to the wise–you can’t let up your guard for one second or she’ll blokus you all to heck.

And Kelsey wins! But um, that’s just because I was distracted photographing the event.

A summary of the Blokus experience: people get violent. People shout. I shout. My brain hurts. It’s so much fun.

I leave you with a memorable quote from my sister Erica when, years ago, we were about to engage in a game of Clue:  “I don’t care who wins as long as it’s not Jenna.”

She should be happy that Blokus has been putting me in my place.