I love the Periodic Table, so when I heard about Genius Games’ Periodic at the UKGE, I leaped at the chance to play it. I wasn’t disappointed. A chemical visual feast, where you have to travel up and down the Periodic Table in order to collect victory points, the game obeys the rules of the table whilst delivering a satisfying gaming experience.
What is Periodic?
In Periodic players move across the Periodic Table board by activating periodic trends. Players draw goal cards for which they must research specific elements to gain victory points. By traveling through certain families of elements players compete with one another for the limited Academic points (which give yet more victory points). The person with the most victory points at the end of the game wins.
Games of Periodic last around 45 mins to and hour and it can be played by 2–5 players. The age on the box is 10+ and that seems pretty accurate, possibly even a little high. My 10-year-old had no difficulty in understanding how to play the game.
What’s in the Periodic box?
The components of Periodic are all presented in muted almost pastel tones that are color-blind friendly. The components ooze class. Just handling and leafing through the cards and components is a pleasurable way to while away some time.
- 1 X Board. The thick card board folds out into an A2 sized multi-colored Periodic Table. It’s colored according to element type, e.g. Alkali Metals, Halogens, Nobel Gases. The table goes all the way up to element 118, Oganession, and contains Atomic number and Atomic Mass, the latter to 3 decimal places. Below the table is the game’s academic track and below that a series of “Periodic Trends” These have colored arrows on them, that, during the game, control the direction you can move your playing piece. But more on that later.
- 1 X Rulebook. The rules of the game are slim, running to just 10 pages. They’re well written with clear examples.
- 1 X “Science Behind” booklet. An explanation of the science and history of the Periodic Table.
