by Sandro Blasich

It is a rather interesting story of how I came up with the idea for TEDOKU.

So, I finished a game for SPIEL Essen pitch and like every year I watched SPIEL Essen preview list and I saw a game that looked almost 90% as mine. It was so similar that I gave up on it and I didn't pitch it. That was a game with Tetris elements. However, since I like both sudoku and Tetris, suddenly an idea crossed my mind that I could actually combine those two elements in one game. As it usually happens, I had that idea in one of those rare quiet moments that you can have when you have kids: when you lock yourself in the bathroom 😊 So, I designed TEDOKU but I had no plans to pitch it at SPIEL Essen. I designed it for fun, just for myself like I said in my previous designer diary.

Basically, the first prototype was practically a final product. Everything just clicked from the beginning. It was easy to design it and it was even easier to make it.

During one board game night at my house, a friend saw a box with no name on my board games shelf and asked me about that game. I said that it was just a game I designed for myself. He was curious about it so we played it a few times and he really liked it. He told me that he thought the game was complete and ready for SPIEL Essen. I wasn't so sure but in the end I decided to pitch it and I managed to get some meetings at Essen for it.


And just like that I signed my first contract. I was very happy. I couldn't believe it but it seemed that I'm finally going to have a published game. As you know, it takes some time from the signing of the contract to the exact publishing date so it took several years for TEDOKU to be published. TEDOKU was my first signed game but in the meantime my other game got published first (Choconnect).


TEDOKU is a 'roll, flip and write game“ in which you try to fit special shapes called polyominoes into your own Sudoku-style grid. The result of a die tells you what to draw and a card flip limits where you can draw it. When drawing a shape you can rotate or mirror it in any direction. If you don't have enough space to draw it properly you must skip your turn. The game finishes after 20 rounds (after 20 cards have been drawn). Each player scores points based on the number of completed sectors, columns and rows in their grid. Also the replayabillity is huge because there are 27 cards in the deck and at setup you remove 7 cards at random. There are 6 pencils in the box but if you have more pencils you can play it with any number of players. The game is also great for solo play. TEDOKU is a small, cosy game but it's got a lot of substance due to a number of interesting choices that you can make. TEDOKU is also a perfect travel size game as well.


I'm very pleased with how Ares Games developed my game. Thank you Roberto Di Meglio.
And of course I must mention Matteo Ceresa, who made a great job with the illustrations and graphic design reminiscent of Japanese art. Thank you Matteo.