Review: Four Sight
Publisher: Invicta Games
Year: 1975
Tagline: a game of the future where success is the power of

Four Sight box is long and has a woman's head from the upper nose up

how we met

I found Four Sight at a thrift shop and could not look away. Just look at that stunning cover! I don’t care what’s in it, how many people need to play, what the ratings are. I am buying this one.

how it plays

Four Sight is a two player abstract game that challenges your spatial reasoning skills. But in a fun way!

One player chooses one of the KEY PLATEs and one set of eight TABLETS, which are either black or white. The other player chooses a different KEY PLATE and the other color of TABLETS. KEY PLATES are like square, colored plastic plates with four openings in them. The object of the game is to place your TABLET pieces so that you can take your KEY PLATE, place it over the pieces, and have three of your pieces and one of your opponent’s showing. Then you win!

There are four key plates with four holes in them in different places representing different patterns
Step 1: pick your poison

The player with the white TABLETS moves first and places their first piece in any of the 16 places on the board. Then black goes. Then white again. And so on.

The square TABLETS on the game board, a 4x4 square
This is your battlefield

Each player must keep their KEY PLATE in front of them and visible to the other player. So the challenge is being able to mentally picture your KEY PLATE in every which way so that you know when you accomplish your goal. But then also to picture your opponent’s KEY PLATE in order to foil their plans. The rest is being strategic in placing your TABLETS and getting lucky with where your opponent places.

The main point of the game is to challenge your mind to be able to move and rotate the KEY PLATE as needed without touching it. The rules do say that once you pick up your key plate you must place it. If you are correct then you win, but if you are not correct then you lose!

how it went

Bill and I played Four Sight some random summer evening. I was a little bit nervous to play because spatial reasoning is not my thing. I played black and chose the yellow KEY PLATE for no particular reason. Bill chose the green KEY PLATE and had white TABLET pieces.

We filled about 2/3 of the board before I excitedly placed a TABLET piece, picked up and placed my KEY PLATE and won Four Sight! With all the irony that I did not see that win coming. I’m pretty sure Bill wasn’t paying very close attention, but I’ll take this win.

The board with a yellow KEY PLATE on it showing three black TABLETS and one white TABLET
My gorgeous win

play or pass

Pass for me personally, but I appreciate everything Four Sight brings to the table. And I’d play it again. I like the cheekiness of the name (winning requires foresight derp!). As you have heard me say many times in other reviews, I think this game borders on relying too much on a specific skill so having players with equal skill may be very important to enjoying gameplay. And that’s a bit of a drawback for me.

But Four Sight is simple and approachable by many different types of players. And if you like abstract games, it’s definitely worth picking off the shelves.