Slide

Shift your perspective and master the grid in a lightning-fast game of clever alignment. Slide (also known internationally as Dekal) is a deceptively simple, highly addictive spatial puzzle card game designed by Claude Clement. Perfect for family gatherings, casual game nights, and players of all ages, it wraps deep tactical decision-making inside a rule set you can learn in under a minute. Your objective is simple: manipulate a private grid of numbers to finish the game with the lowest possible point total. But because everyone acts simultaneously, your strategy must constantly adapt to the ever-shifting choices of your opponents.

Every player begins the match with a hidden 4x4 matrix of sixteen face-down cards numbered from one to ten. Each round, everyone reveals one hidden card from their grid and throws it into the central pool. The player who flips the lowest number claims the starting token and gets first pick of the face-up pool, with selection moving clockwise from there. Once you grab your chosen card, you must slide it into your grid from an outer edge to fill the empty hole left behind by your revealed card. This action pushes the entire row or column along, completely rearranging your setup and altering your scoring paths.

The real magic happens when the sixteenth round ends and all grids are fully revealed. To wipe away your points, you must outmaneuver the deck by forming orthogonally adjacent clusters of identical numbers. Any matching cards that are touching horizontally or vertically cancel each other out completely, scoring zero points and leaving the board. You then sum up the face values of whatever scattered cards remain. With zero reading required to play, it bridges generations seamlessly, making it just as engaging for a seven-year-old as it is for a lifelong strategist.