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Tula

1. Tula

Players 1
Length 10 mins
Required Bits single standard piecepack
Designer James Kyle
Version 1.0.1
Version Date 2003-08-29
Licence public domain

1.1. Description

Shanghai-like tile game.

1.2. Rules

http://www.piecepack.org/rules/Tula.pdf

/TextVersion

1.3. Reviews & Comments

One of the RecommendedGames. (./) (./) (./)

Tula is good. It is in the style of a classical card based solitaire, but ported to the piecepack. It is very quick, so I played it about 12 times, but could not complete it, although I came very close a few times. Again it has a loose archaeological theme, as Tula is the site of a terraced pyramid, about an hours drive from here. The tableau is in the shape of a terraced pyramid. My only slight complaint is that it breaks down early on too often, but I am keen to complete it, which is the acid test of a good solitaire.

-- IainCheyne, from [WWW]inconsequential ruminations

Easy to understand, short rules. Good solitaire game. Unfortunately a high percentage of games is impossible to solve. (./)

--KarlBartel

I tried this 10 times and gave up. I think that the layout is creative and the that game design is a good idea but the playability makes puts it low on my list of games I want to come back to. It seems to me that this is more in the patience category. If I have a lot of patience then eventually I will get lucky and the tiles will be in a winable order. I am open to seeing more skill in it's play if someone can give me some suggestions but my games went like this (I am not counting the first one off as that is a complete freebie).

1. 11 tiles off (beginners luck)
2. No plays
3. No plays
4. No plays
5. 3 off
6. 1 off
7. 2 off
8. 1 off
9. 1 off
10. 2 off

I tried to think of ways to make it more playable such as additional swaps or having the tiles face up. But as I only got into layer 2 twice out of 10 plays I gave up. Again, I don't think the concept is poor just it's playability. Even the toughest layouts of Shanghai give you more options.

--KisaGriffin, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/piecepack/message/1678

Session report:

I played it a dozen time, won 3 and was stimied on the first move once. This seems about right. The win percentage is about the same as Canfield and feels a little harder then FreeCell. I also tried other stacking rules:

  1. Different suit but number differs by one up or down with wrapping.

  2. Ignore suit but number must be one greater with wrapping.

  3. Different suit or same number.

All of which worked well with the following stats on a dozen tries:

  1. won twice, stimied twice

  2. won 3 times, stimied twice

  3. won 5 times, never stimied

A Great, fast and addicting solitaire game.

-- Mark A. Biggar quoted from [WWW]piecepack mailing list message #597

Tula is like a traditional card solitaire ported to piecepack. I found it so and so. I played four games and completed it once. Once I got only one tile after the first free tile. I had to use the mercy swapping rule twice, and it's highly recommended unless you like to shuffle the tiles a lot. It's a nice little solitaire game that's easy to play, so I can see myself playing it again. (./)

-- [WWW]Mikko Saari at Gameblog

Tula is a passable quick solitaire that is easy to play, but often impossible to win. Fortunately, it's easy to set up and play over and over again. (./) (./) -- ClarkRodeffer

1.4. Links

BGG Page: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/35986

CategoryGame SolitairePuzzlesCategory RecommendedGamesCategory