- Original Release: 1991 (appeared in Star Trek in 1998)
- Developer: Blaise Muller
- Publisher: Gigamic
- Original Platform: Board Game
Durotta is what the game Quarto will be called in the 24th century. Based on the Voyager Season 5 opening episode “Night”, with Tom Paris opening the game with the “Novakovich gambit”.
The object of Durotta is to place a piece in order to form a line of 4 with a single matching characteristic. These characteristics are: Tall/Short, Round/Square, Light/Dark and Full/Hollow. As long as one characteristic is consistent across 4 in a row, you’ll win. For example: if you place a tall piece to form a row of four tall pieces, you win, even if they are all a mixture of light and dark.
What makes the game special is that you don’t choose what piece you play: your opponent does, which makes the game incredibly strategic as you have to think about what moves your opponent can make when deciding what piece to hand them, but also keep an eye on the remaining pieces when placing one as you don’t want to force yourself to give your opponent the winning piece. We see Tom and B’elanna passing each other the pieces, so it seems like they were following the actual rules of the game (even if they made up names for moves).
I only tried this game because of it’s appearance in Voyager, but I really love it. It’s a brilliant game, and the mini version (the one I got) is nice and portable – it also looks fantastic and makes for a great display piece.
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