Blokus - Is it possible to play all pieces in a cooperative game? It is!

[ny1050220]

I noticed that Blokus has been mentioned a few times in the forum, but never really discussed.
We had this question today, as the title reads. In a cooperative game, is it possible to play all pieces?
We will try to construct such a pattern some time this weekend, but I would like to ask if anyone has managed to do this before. Or did anyone prove that this is not possible?

For those not familiar with the game, here's a short summary of the rule.
The play area is a 20 squares * 20 squares board. There are four colours. Each colour has all the n-ominoes, where n = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
An n-omino is n unit squares joined by sides, sides matching each other completely. There are 1 kind of monomino, 1 kind of domino, 2 kinds of triomino, 5 kinds of tetromino, and 12 kinds of pentomino. One way to remember the pentomino is: (I should give reference here but I can't remember) FIL(i)P(i)N(o), TUVWXYZ. Each capital letter has a pentomino featuring it. I can't remember the reference.
So each player/colour has 21 pieces or 89 area units. Each player starts from a corner, and the first piece has to cover the corner square. Each following piece touches one or more corners of his/her own colour. It's okay to touch other colours by side.


Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2679.0

[Paul]

I never played it. Wanted to buy it though because I love the pieces. But the price is insane in my opinion (here in Sweden) that goes up to 40 Euro.

There was a mini-version called IQ Puzzle released some 20 years go for (back then worth) 1 Euro. I bought one copy and wish I bought more for now it's unobtainable.
  Basically, there's one of every possible 5-block combo piece with the challenge to make a rectangle of 5x12 block-sized shape.

Let us know what you find with Blokus!

[ny1050220]

It's very intense game. Every single step requires so much calculation. And you have so many spots you need to block and there are so many spots where you opponents can break into your territory.
So far we've tried 4-player and 3-player games. And it looks like the first player(s) are at disadvantage. Opponents see where you try to break in and try to block you accordingly. It might also be that we are fairly new to the game so we haven't found the good strategy as the first player(s).
A 3-player game is bit tricky. Now that all three players take turns to substitute the missing player, your relative position to the missing player is important. Last night I and the missing player are at opposite corner, so I consider it as a disadvantage. I never got two consecutive moves while the other two players got this opportunity. They could strategically play his/her own piece and the fourth player's piece (or in the reverse order for the other player) consecutively every once a while, when my own move and my "service" to the missing player were always separated by surprises.
In our games, I find the F and X pieces the most difficult to fit in patterns later in the game, so I always start with F, following by an X. The I pentomino is really powerful in block opponents.

[ny1050220]

So today I went back to my normal mode: reading the rules before playing.
The rulebook gives an affirmative answer to my question in the title, so I edited the title.
The rulebook even points out the possibility of playing all the pentominoes first, then all the tetrominoes, then all the triominoes, then the domino, and finally the monomino, and the rulebook calls the the difficult version.
We managed to accomplish the easy task, see attached. We might try the difficult version some other time.