Entanglion

Today's review is of the new (2017?) release, Entanglion.  A cooperative game for 2 players, it takes 45 minutes.

Overview
A game designed for educational purposes by a team at IBM, Entanglion is "the world's first open source quantum board game."  The goal is to travel the galaxy with your colleague, collecting components to assemble a quantum computer.  To do so, you must journey to different worlds and overcome layers of defense to get what you need.  Journeying requires being in lock-step with your partner (determined by card draws and dice rolls), as you both emulate qubits.  If you collectively gather all eight components of the computer before you're detected too frequently, you win!

game board; image from here

Review
From the designer, "Entanglion was designed at IBM Research to expose players to several fundamental concepts in quantum computing, including qubits, superposition, entanglement, measurement, and error. Entanglion also exposes players to the different kinds of hardware and software components involved in building a real quantum computer."  In that, it is successful.  It's fun for an educational game, and shows how valuable games can be in education.  I wouldn't play it frequently, but recommend it for those who enjoy games and are interested in quantum computing.

Rating: B