Turnstile

(Click to Enlarge)

Turnstile is a rather unusual logic game from ThinkFun. The presentation is very elegant and colorful, but can be a bit confusing to understand. As you go through the included 40 challenges, the difficulty level increases and some of them can be quite tricky to solve, putting your wits to the test.

The game was invented by Steve Hayton and ThinkFun started production in 2011. Like many of ThinkFun's logic games, there's something about this one that makes it quite addicting. The idea of going through all challenges seems like an arduous task, but as soon as you understand the concept, you'll solve them in no time.

Turnstile can be described as a dynamic maze. In other words, as you try and solve one of the challenges you'll make changes to the overall appearance of that particular maze. You need to be thinking two or three steps ahead, as a misstep in the wrong direction could mean starting all over.

(Click to Enlarge) - Easy Challenge: Starting Position and Solved State

The main goal is to get all four colored tokens to their respective corners, although some challenges, particularly in the easier levels, only require the use of one or two colored tokens. Blocking your way are turnstiles that constantly create new paths as you pass through them. To make your task a little more interesting you also have to worry about the gray tokens that can actually be used in your favor, to open new paths.

You start by picking a challenge from the deck. If you're unfamiliar with the puzzle you can start by the easier ones and go through the four different difficulty levels. After setting the game grid you can now move the tokens through the maze and get them to their correct spaces.

There are a few rules you need to be aware of. You can only push the turnstiles, one quarter of a turn, with a token. You move the tokens one at a time, in any direction except on the diagonal, and always to an adjacent space. If there's a token or other turnstile blocking your way it means the correct path must be through somewhere else. Just keep practicing and you'll eventually find the correct way to solve it.

Difficulty-wise, Turnstile can be pretty challenging, especially the last ones due to the large number of required moves, which also increases your chances of doing something wrong. This is not the easiest game to understand at first, and you may need some time getting used to it.

(Click to Enlarge) - Hard Challenge: Starting Position and Solved State

Closing Comments:

Turnstile turned out to be a great surprise. I wasn't expecting much out of it, but found it to be quite fun and entertaining, and most importantly, addicting. If you like this sort of logic games I'm sure you'll love Turnstile.

Availability: Turnstile is available at Sloyd for €25.20.