Stack tiles and forget your vowels in colourful puzzler NMBR 9

We’re not sure what it is about piling up colourful tiles means you can’t spell words with any vowels, but it hardly matters as Z-Man’s upcoming AEIOU-averse puzzle game NMBR 9 looks like a blast all the same.

There are ten different tiles, each depicting an abstract number printed across a Tetris-like arrangement of polyominoes.

A card is randomly drawn at the start of each round to dictate which tile must be placed according to a series of rules, including the need to align edges when laying on the same level as an existing piece or covering at least two tiles if being stacked on top of the current layout.

The trick is that tiles are worth more points the higher they are stacked, with the figure on each piece being multiplied by its final height to calculate a final score – so a ‘7’ on level 3 is worth 21 points, and so on.

Each player has their own mini tower of digits and there are two cards in the deck for each number – from 0 to 9 – meaning playing lower amounts as a foundation for bigger bonuses later on is key.

With a German print already in circulation, NMBR 9 should be out properly in the UK later this year.