Maybe you saw a Kickstarter for Tak: A Beautiful Game. It's a game that makes an appearance in Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles. I love (love!) The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear and I thought The Slow Regard of Silent Things was a delight. I will gladly consume anything set in that universe, so I may be a bit biased, but Tak is a good game.

The game will be produced by Cheapass Games, who already made two of our kids' favorites, Pairs and Lord of the Fries.

Aside: I'd especially recommend Pairs for playing a quick game while you're trying to keep the kids busy at a restaurant. You only need a tiny amount of table space, and you can sweep it up in a hurry.

The Kickstarter will deliver in November, but I couldn't wait that long, so I built a set. I used some alder boards left over from a dice tower I made. They're 1½ inches wide and ¼ inch thick. I used my Fine Kerf Saw to cut 40 identical squares out of the alder and sanded everything lightly with 320-grit paper.

At first I tried gluing up some shaped pieces to be my capstones, but they looked too much like standing stones, so I bought some decorative dowel caps, and they're great.

Half of the pieces are completely unfinished. I put the other half in a baggie with some Special Walnut Stain and let them soak for 15 min.

I stitched up a denim bag and added a lace leather drawstring to hold the pieces.

I don't have a great board yet. I just drew one with a sharpie and colored pencils on butcher paper. The squares-and-diamonds design is pretty much the same as on Cheapass's site. Maybe I'll make a better board next.

It took me about 2 hours to make and stain the pieces. Then it took another couple to hand-sew the bag. The board took maybe 30 minutes. Not bad for a few hours' work.

If I were going to build another set, I'd get some thicker alder. These tip over a little too easily. They're still acceptable, I'm just picky.

We've played quite a bit, and it's a really fun game. The pieces are easy to see and move. Danger already announced that he's going to build his own Tak set out of Lego.