Deflexion - The Laser Game

Deflexion is a chess-like, two-player, arguably abstract strategy game - with lasers! Each player gets four different kinds of pieces, one of which is the "pharaoh." Two of the pieces have mirrors on them. The object: position the pieces so that when you fire your laser, it winds up hitting the non-mirrored side of one of your opponent's pieces. If you hit a Pharaoh piece, the game is over.

The pieces need to be set up in their specified starting positions. It took a while to do this, because the whole board (and not just the starting rows, as in chess or checkers) is used. And, as a taste of strategic implications yet to come, the rules describe two different set-ups, each chock-full of its own subtle significances. Meaning, as Shakespeare might have said if he had his own Deflexion game, that there are more things in lasers and mirrors than are dreampt of in our philosophies....

The moment we installed the (included) batteries and discovered that yes, there are actually lasers, and they are, yes, most definitely bright enough, and that, yes, they do bounce off the mirrors in a most classically laserlike manner - we were hooked. O, we were trepidatiously hooked, all right. What if the game doesn't really play as good as it looks? What if the laser light can't really be seen when it hits a piece? What if it's too complex? After all, there are some strange, chess-like rules about how certain pieces can move. And, o, we so much wanted the game to be as good as it looked! I mean, with lasers and mirrors and everything!

And, upon reflection, so to speak, we found it fun. We found it very fun. Major, as a matter of fact, FUN. And we were sorely happy.

Chew by Numbers

Chew by Numbers. Really. Kind of like paint-by-numbers, as you might have surmised, only with an artistically chosen array of differently colored chewing gum, as you might also have surmised. From the remarkable palette, as it were, of Jamie Marraccini, author of the amazing GumArt website, within which you will find a veritable gallery of chewed-over pictures and sculptures of feats of dental prowess requiring as many as 3177 pieces of gum.

The Chew by Numbers kits are elegant in their simplicity - a blister pack containing a board upon which is printed a chew-by-numbers pattern, and a selection of bubble gum pieces. Perhaps not the kind of gift dentists or even fairly aware parents might purchase for their children, and yet, how can one resist? As the artist himself writes: "I've now come to the realization that the gum justifies the art. The fun is in the chewing and the art is an expression of the fun. Just remember, gum is not chewed for health or sustenance. People chew gum for pleasure. It is in that spirit that GumArt exists, and I am a spreader of gum."