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Ingenious (board game)

board game

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 5, 2026
Entity authorityQ1307125
Source-derived summary

Ingenious is the English name for Einfach Genial (Simply Ingenious), a German abstract strategy board game designed by Reiner Knizia under commission from Sophisticated Games and published in 2004 by Kosmos. Across most of Europe it is titled as the local translation of Ingenious or Simply Ingenious, the notable exception being Mensa Connections in the UK.

Components

1 game board

4 tile racks

4 cardboard scoring boards

24 wooden scoring blocks

120 tiles

1 rule sheet

With the exception of the game box and rule sheet (which require regional translations), identical components are used in each version of the game.

Tile distribution

There are six coloured symbols used in the game:

red 12-pointed star

green circle

blue 6-pointed star

orange hexagon

yellow 24-pointed star

purple ring

Tiles are in the shape of two conjoined hexagons, with one of the coloured symbols in each hexagon. There are six tiles for each two-colour combination (e.g. red/orange) and five for each double (e.g. blue/blue). The combination of colours and symbols aids visually impaired players.

Rules

Basics

The game can be played by two, three or four players, with additional rules provided for solo and four-player partnership play. Each player has a rack of six randomly chosen tiles which are concealed from the other players. The board is also made up of a number of hexagons, with the two outermost rings reserved for three- and four-player games respectively.

Editorial summary

“Ingenious (board game)” enters the record as board game. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ingenious, board and game can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2004—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Ingenious, board and game.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Ingenious (board game)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Ingenious, board and game provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1307125. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2004.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Ingenious (board game)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.