Bombastic was first explained to me as advanced tic-tac-toe. That’s not entirely accurate. You’re not actually trying to make a straight line of three of your icons. However you do play in a 3×3 grid, and the icons are crosses and circles. Bombastic is a two-player-only abstract game played using 9 tiles laid out face-down in a 3×3 grid. Four of the tiles show a circle, another four a cross, and the last one a bomb. Each player is assigned an icon, circle or cross. Your goal is to reveal exactly three of your icon on your turn. Beware. If you ever reveal the bomb, you lose. 

On your turn you have two options. You either attempt to win, as described above, or you perform a card action. The game comes with a deck of cards, and you always have two face up. On your turn you can pick one card to use. The cards have all sorts of powers, allowing you to peek at tiles and to move them around. It is by using these cards you figure out which tiles are yours, and which are your opponent’s and the bomb. You and your opponent will gain different information. You can mess with your opponent when you get to shuffle some of the tiles. It is a race to be first to reveal a set of three icons. Sometimes you have to gamble a little, if you sense that your opponent is close to knowing where three of his tiles are.