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YORKTON - Pixies is a new release which will fight for table time among the dozen of ‘filler’ games which seem to be popping up these days.

It makes some sense that quick games are popular – it’s the 30 second online video idea in gaming terms. Play one and kill an hour, then move on to something else.

Honestly I understand the squirrel gamer, I can be one myself. I like new games.

That said I could play many games all evening – although my taste in those game runs a bit askew to the general Meeple Guild members.

But that is a digression. We are here to discuss Pixies from designer Johannes Goupy and publisher Bombyx.

It’s a small box card game where you are selecting cards from a trio offered, and placing them into a 3x3 grid – the cards are numbered 1-to-9 to make placement arbitrary.

You hope of course to score points at game end, and there are several ways to what is achieved. Some cards are automatic points.

Another mechanic has you need to ‘activate’ the card – accomplished by placing another card under it. You want to concentrate on the higher number cards because they will score face value if ‘activated’. It is not forced on the player but it’s folly not to focus on high numbers.

There are also points for orthogonal connections of like coloured cards. This one is the big scorer, especially in the third round of the game and because of that it is largely a forced strategy.

There are some wild cards that fit for any colour so those are highly valuable.

The multiple ways to score do suggest lots of choices here, but there are some rather obvious strategies to score well so choices are ultimately limited.

The game plays over three rounds and that allows some ‘comeback’ potential, and the game still remains brisk.

The art by Sylvain Trabut is what is maybe most interesting in Pixies. Some are going to see the little critters here as rather ugly, of that there is no doubt.

But, in general ‘whimsical’ or ‘cute’ or ‘charming’ seem more appropriate to reviewing the art, at least from this writer’s perspective.

This game retails for under $15 and that helps make it a recommendation. At a low-end cost, you don’t need to play this one a 100 times to get good value. It can be that fun filler when needed, and in that role it works well.