Quartile

Quartile is a beautifully executed tile game for 2-6 players. According to SimplyFun, it is suitable for kids as young as 5.

It will make you think of dominoes. Which is a good start.

There are 49 tiles. Wooden tiles. In a wooden box. Just as lovely as a lovely set of dominoes. Square tiles. Not like dominoes at all.

Each tile has a number in the center, ranging from 2 to 14. The number is surrounded on 4 sides by domino-like pips, ranging from 1 to 7. To play a tile, you must match the pip-count of all adjacent tiles. The value of the tile is determined by the number in the center. The score for a play is that number, multiplied by the number of matching adjacent tiles. So, of you play an 8, and it is adjacent to 2 other tiles, and both sides match, you get 16 points.

The possibility of getting a higher score by matching more than one adjacent tile makes the game especially suited to family play. The younger player can derive satisfaction from making a simple match. The older players can find significant challenge by trying to make the highest scoring play possible (matching all 4 sides).

The artful distribution and configuration of tiles invites mathematically-oriented players to get even more engaged. There's only one tile worth 2 points, and all 4 sides have only one pip. There's also only one tile worth 14 points, and all 4 of its sides have 7 pips. There are 7 tiles worth 8 points. These tiles have anywhere from 1 to 7 pips on their edges.

Just enough complexity so that those who want to take the game seriously can find serious things to think about. Just enough simplicity to invite some significant glee.

Yes, Quartile is made in China. And yes, again, it has been carefully examined for lead and other bad things and as been found most consumer-worthy.

Q-BA-MAZE

Q-BA-MAZE is a marble run construction toy, in the tradition of Boyongolo, the HABA Ball set, the Quercetti Marble Run, the Skyrail Marble Run Roller Coaster, and, of course, Cuboro. In the tradition of, and yet, unique, and uniquely worthy of our collective attention.

Actually, all these toys, and many more like them, are worthy of our collective attention. Building a marble run engages both creative and scientific reasoning. Every design must ultimately "work," not only aesthetically, but also mechanically. No matter how good it looks, if the ball doesn't go where you think it should, or if the run isn't as long as you hope it should be, you're just going to have to build it differently.

Now, back to Q-BA-MAZE. I promise not to use the word "amazing" more than once - after this. First, allow me to use the word "cube." As in Cuboro, the basic building block is a, well, block. Unlike Cuboro, there are only three types of blocks, they are made out of a durable polycarbonate, translucently acrylic-like plastic, and they fit together in most satisfyingly interlocking configurations. They can slide into each other along their sides, they can be stacked on to each other, they can be built up and out into cantileverishly cunning constructs. They also work. One of the three, the one that opens on both ends, works in a most curiously delightful manner. It is a switch, of sorts. With no moving parts. But when a ball drops into it, the ball will often hesitate before traveling left or right, sometimes hesitate a most tantalizingly long time, as if deliberating. And this turns out to be a particularly delicious deliberation, adding just that extra touch of surprise, just that extra change in rhythm that makes the whole, multi-colored construct that much more surprising, that much more engaging.

Q-BA-MAZE comes with a bunch of steel balls - not because they're easy to lose, and definitely not because they're easy to swallow (hence, the small child advisory), but because the more balls you drop into it, the more complex the pattern of the fall, the more fun it is to watch - a visual equivalent of the difference between melody and symphony.

Watch the video, read the blog, construct your own myriad of delights, or build any of the configurations you find online, like this one, if you happen to have purchased the 50 count set (36 blocks and 14 balls).

You'll be amazed.

Zobmondo!! "Would You Rather...?"

Zobmondo!! "Would You Rather...?" is the party game for three or more players that asks your basically unanswerable questions - questions like "Would you rather be the circus person that the knife thrower throws knives at, or the one who puts their head in the lion's mouth?" It's the "conundrum-likeness" of the questions that is key to the fun of the game. There really are no correct answers. But they're fun to think about, and talk about, and maybe even argue over.

Zobmondo!! "Would You Rather...?" game comes in several incarnations. There's a version for people ages 12 and up and another for people 16 and up. There's Zobmondo!! You Gotta Be Kidding, a version designed for people 7 and up. And a travel version for 12 and up.

We'll talk about the travel version last, primarily because the mechanics are a little different.

In all of its manifestations, the game centers on your ability to predict which of the two choices most people will select. Since the choices are equally questionable ("would you rather be able to walk on water forever or fly for three hours on three different occasions in your life?"), you're more or less intuiting (all right, guessing) what everyone will decide. The real fun for everyone else is in the discussion (debate? argument?) over which of the two answers make the more sense (given that neither is actually more sensible than the other). There's a board and die that help determine who is closer to winning (the most intuitive/luckiest) of the group, what the category of conundrum will be ("Pain - Fear, Discomfort," "Appearance, Embarrassment," "Ethics - Intellect," or "Random"), or whether the player must select a "Challenge" card. (The 16-plus version has an additional category: "Food - Ingestion.")

Even though the basic premise of the game - arguing over basically absurd choices - is fun enough, the challenge cards add a valuable dimension to the game: variety. Some challenges can be won by any player (e.g., the "Best Reason" card which asks all the players to "compose the most creative, thought provoking, and/or funniest reason for your choice"), and some, like the "Would You Do It" challenge, where you win the challenge only if you do things like "demonstrate a pickle mustache by holding a pickle between your upper lip and nose for one full turn."), won only by the player who selects the card.

Of the three versions, You Gotta Be Kidding, the game for the 7-ups, is clearly the silliest. There are no categories. You get questions like "Would you rather eat a hair sandwich or an earwax omelet?" You have a game board which is actually much easier to use (we did have some minor problems interpreting exactly how to move from track to track on the other versions). And you get this really neat electronic "Red Chili Pepper" thing. It's only used for some of the challenge cards, and works kind of like a hot potato. And changes the pace of the game just about perfectly.

Then there's the metal-tinned travel version that comes without a die, or a board, or playing pawns, and yet is inviting and fun enough to help you bridge significant distances - geographically and socially. The key is the artful use of a write-on, wipe-off board. There are four spaces on the board: Contender, Dead-Ender, Limbo, and the Prediction space. At the beginning of the game, everyone writes their initials in the Contender space. There are category chips. The first Contender picks a chip, then a "Would You Rather...?" card, and the game proceeds as usual - the chip determining which conundrum gets read, the Contender writing her prediction on the board, everyone else having a semi-serious, consensus-reaching discussion. Guess right, you are still a Contender, and you pass the board to the next player. Guess wrong, you are a Dead-Ender. For the rest of the game, when it's your turn, you have to make up a new conundrum. If your prediction is correct, you get to move anyone else into the Limbo zone, which, in itself, becomes a source of further contention. The last Contender wins.

All in all, the game, in each of its various manifestations, invites many happy hours of contemplation, conversation, significant silliness, and Major FUN.

Lost Cities

Lost Cities, published by Rio Grande Games, is an elegant two-player card game - easy to learn, a few, simple rules, and yet chock full of subtle strategic considerations. It's one of the games that helped establish Reiner Knizia's reputation as a grand master of game design.

The deck (well-illustrated, oversized "expedition" cards) consists of 5 suits, each suit a different color. Cards in a suit are numbered from 2-10. There are 15 "investment" cards, 3 for each color.

Placing the board between you, you build any of 5 different expeditions - cards of the same color, in ascending order. On your turn, you can add a card to any of your expeditions, start a new expedition, or discard onto the corresponding space on the board.

Each expedition you start costs you 20 points (a significant strategic wrinkle of the "don't start anything you can't finish" ilk). Each card you play on a destination adds that amount of points (2 to 10) to the total for that expedition. Since you must play the cards in ascending order, if the first card you play is a 10, that becomes your total earnings for that expedition, so you lose 10 points. Here we have yet another wrinkle - the lower ranking cards being strategically more valuable in the beginning of the game as you build up towards the higher. Unless you've played an investment card first. Which doubles your loss or gain. Since there are three investment cards for every expedition, if you play all three investment cards first, you stand a chance to increase your gain or loss by a multiple of four. On the other hand, if you manage to collect all 9 cards (2-10), and you had the foresight and fortune to also get all three investment cards, you could, conceivably, earn more than 250 points for a single expedition (less the 20 for investment costs). Note the term "conceivably."

Though luck plays a definite role, each turn is corrugated with strategic wrinkles. The first few turns are the most provoking, thought-wise. As the game continues, the choices are fewer, and the pace quickens - adding a lovely sense of semi-breathless anticipation as the game draws to its inevitable conclusion.

The round ends as soon as you run out of cards from the draw pile. You can delay that inevitability by picking cards from the discard piles that accumulate on the board. But only for so long. Thus, yet another wrinkle, strategically-speaking. A full game takes three rounds. And the whole thing can be played in under a half-hour.

You know how in all other card games you pick first and then throw? Well, in Lost Cities you do the opposite. And therein, believe it or not, lies a significant portion of the delight and the agony of the game. (Agony in the best sense, as in the Greek, agon - "the conflict on which a literary work turns.") There you are, with a white 5 on the board, a 7 and 10 in your hand. You don't want to play the 10 because that will be the end of that expedition. So you throw the 7. And you pick. And there's that 6. O, the sheer injustice of it all! And the Major FUN-itude!

There is definitely a strong element of luck in this game. But not the fault-mitigating kind of luck that you sometimes some desperately hope for. You lose, it's probably because you could have played better. Thus it is recommended for the more mature player, who can better deal with the onus of having to think while in the steely grip of the ineffabilities of fate - that puts you at fifth grade, at least.

The game has been around for a while (originally published by Kosmos in 1999). You can even play online.

Gemlok

Gemlok, from Pywacket Games is a board game for 2-4 players combining chance and strategy in some rather delicious ways.

The object of the game is to score points by occupying high value spaces on the board. To do so, you move your playing pieces according to movement patterns determined by the throw of a unique pair of dice. You begin the game by positioning your 8 pawns on 8 of the 14 spaces along one of the edges of the board. Printed on the board is a large array of gems of different value. The gems in the center of the board are of the highest value, thus attracting much of the action of the game.

If you manage to land on a space occupied by another pawn (your own, your partner's, or your opponent's), you can "bump" that pawn up to three squares in any direction. Though you might feel it more important to bump your opponent off of a high-scoring gem-square, you would be wise to consider the possibility of opportunities for you to bump one of your pawns on to a higher-scoring space.

The word "Gemlok" is printed on the sixth side on each of the dice. This allows you to make the placement of any one of your pawns permanent, which, with all that bumping going on, often turns out to be highly desirable.

Gemlok has relatively few rules, and takes maybe a half-hour to play. But it is an intensely absorbing half-hour, one that you'll probably want to repeat several times before game time ends. Though dice are used, Gemlok is much more a game of strategy than chance.

Recommended for 2-4 children as young as 7 and grown-ups who can stand losing to them, Gemlok should prove as successful as a family game as it is worthy of somewhat serious adult consideration.