NMBR9 - Tetris with numbers

NMBR9 is an odd little game I got about a year ago when I drove over to Oceanside to buy a big stack of board games from a guy on Facebook.  I didn't get a chance to look at it until now.  Unboxing is fun, punching out all those thick cardboard numbers and stacking them in the number-shaped spaces in the box.

This is a sort of Tetris-style shape fitting game using numbers with intentionally awkward shapes.  Really, you just shuffle the short stack of cards and then flip them over one at a time until they are gone.  If the card shows a 3, all players take a 3 and try to add it to their layout.

So easy!  Except for the awkward shapes that often don't fit anywhere.  The trick to building the layout is that a number tile must be placed alongside another tile, or on top of two or more numbers.  With NO gaps beneath them.  And then the scoring is a matter of deconstructing the pile where the bottom layer counts zero, the first layer on top of that counts face value, the second layer counts x2 face value, and so on.  I suppose, once we got really good at it, we could just eyeball this

and come up with the right score.  But we broke it down layer by layer, added up each layer, and did the multipliers.  

My initial take on strategy is that you want a reasonably big base layer to add onto, with as few gaps as possible.  But you also want higher numbers on higher levels for the multipliers, but you're lucky to get anything to fit as planned, so even getting to a third layer is an accomplishment.  Your second layer is probably full of holes by the time you get there, and maybe a 1 will fit on top, like it did in that photo.

When I first read the rules, it sounded too simple to function at all.  If everyone plays the same sequence of number tiles, surely they will come up with similar layouts.  At least to some degree ... you would think.  But no, even halfway through, look at the weird heap the other player put together.  How can it have that much variety?

Like this one

which had the same exact card sequence as the previous image, but it's a whole other kind of swiss cheese.

This was a surprisingly interesting challenge.  We both like jigsaw puzzles, and these big chunky pieces immediately felt more like a losing set of Tetris tiles instead.  You really need a steady hand to pack these things together effectively, so if you have even a bit of a shake it gets frustrating.

It clearly lends itself to solitaire play, no special rules needed.

I appreciate a simple idea that turns out to be a confounding mess with a lot to learn.  Kudos to the designer.  We will be playing this one again.  I'm sure there are patterns to be discovered.