The Blue Lion

About this board game

The Blue Lion is a two-player game of tile manipulation that plays in about 15 minutes. Set at the Louvre, it casts one player as Arsène Lupin and the other as Lady X, both competing to steal the valuable Blue Lion diamond.

The game uses six tiles, each showing an icon on both its front and back. The icons represent Lupin, Lady X, the Blue Lion, or a police inspector, and each combination of two icons occurs once. During setup, players take tiles in turn and add them to either end of a line without looking at the hidden side.

Once the line is arranged, players take turns changing it with one of three actions: switch two adjacent tiles, move an end tile to the opposite end, or flip a tile. The aim is to create a scoring combination of three tiles through careful manipulation of the row.

• Sandwich an opponent tile between two police inspectors to score 1 point.
• Sandwich the Blue Lion between two tiles showing your character to score 2 points.
• Create a row of three Blue Lion tiles to score 3 points.

After a scoring combination is formed, the middle tile is removed. The opposing player adds that tile to one end of the line, although they cannot score points by adding it. This keeps the arrangement changing while giving both players opportunities to reshape the available combinations.

In The Blue Lion, every action can alter the next scoring chance. The first player to reach seven points wins.