Hexa-Trex

A few months ago, I wrote about some wonderful puzzles from Think Fun. I received the following comment from Bogusia Gierus. She wrote:

"I happened upon your blog recently, and had fun reading it and enjoyed doing some of the puzzles you suggested. I wanted to introduce you to a puzzle I have developed. It's called: Hexa-Trex. It's a math puzzle, but doesn't require extreme knowledge of mathematics to have fun with it - only basic arithmetic is essential. The object of the puzzle is to find an pathway through all the hexagonal tiles that creates a valid math equation. It's a simple concept, but is challenging and fun for the 'puzzle' type of person. If you wish, check out the puzzles on my website, I try to post a new puzzle each day."

A few months later, she sent me a copy of her new book of Hexa-Trex puzzles. And it seemed pretty clear to me that it was time to let you know about this - about a teacher who has such a love for kids and learning and, most significantly, such a deep appreciation for the fun, the inherent fun that learning is all about. And about these gifts: the free, online treasury of Hexa-Trex puzzles, and this most puzzling, innovative little book of good, hard, fun - with numbers, even.

Nacho Loco

Nacho Loco isn't exactly a card game, actually. It's more of a tile game, played with triangles (hence "Nacho"s), made out of cardboard. And yes, it could very well remind you of Triominoes, though it plays more like a, well, card game - a bit like, perhaps, UNO.

You get 94 cards. If they were thick and made of plastic, you'd think of them as tiles. But they're cardboard. And not thick enough to stand up. Just thick enough to be impossible to shuffle. So you put them face-down on the table, smush them around until they're satisfyingly mixed, and give 6 cards to each of up to 6 players.

Each card is divided into three equal triangular sections. Some are different colors. Some have words on them. Some are black, and marked with an X. To play one of your cards, you have to match one of the sections of your card with one of the sections of a card on the table. The X-marked black sections can't be matched, by anything, even by other X-marked black sections.

The sections with words say "Skip Next," or "Go Again," or "Opponent Draws 3." If you have an exact match, then either the next player gets skipped, or you get to play again, or you can tell any opponent to draw 3 additional card/tiles.

The object of the game is to get rid of your cards. As soon as someone has played her last card, she gets one point for each card remaining in the other players' hands. The first player to get 20 points wins. And that's about that.

Visually, the game is quite appealing. As it progresses, colorful, three-dimensional-like patterns are created. And the back of the cards look like, yes, nachos. Rounds are relatively short, and the game has a fast-enough pace to keep everyone involved for the duration. Easy to learn. Mildly strategic. Fun to play.

Fun for kids as young as 8, the game should appeal equally to everyone in the family. Nacho Loco comes to us from Buffalo Games, makers of the Major FUN award winning iMAgiNiff.

Pieceless Puzzles

A Pieceless Puzzle looks very much like your standard jig-saw puzzle. A two-sided standard jig-saw puzzle. Made of some kind of rubbery, foamy stuff, the colorful puzzle is solved by fitting what you might think of as pieces together, just like a jig-saw puzzle. Except they're not really pieces, they're connected to each other, permanently, in one, continuous, many-branching, uh, piece.

Putting one together is a bit like weaving - you start somewhere, anywhere. Like all jig-saw puzzles you probably want to start at a corner or edge. Unlike any jig-saw puzzle, you simply follow the connection - as much as you can - in case the non-piece it's connected to will actually somehow fit into it. Sometimes it doesn't. Which is weird. Which is what makes the puzzle so much fun. Because you have to find another branch.

If you can, try to lay the puzzle flat. This is not as easy as it sounds. It means untangling and untwisting the whole strand. If you're trying one of the more complex puzzles from the "12 and up" series, the untangling, untwisting, flattening strategy can be challenging enough to be a puzzle in its own right.

All in all, we found the Pieceless concept to be a welcome innovation. The puzzles themselves are extremely satisfying to solve. They tend to take a lot less time than a corresponding uh "pieced" puzzle, but the time they do take is a good one - absorbing, visually, tactilely, conceptually pleasing.

And, yes, sure, it's really wonderful that you don't have to worry about losing any pieces. One giant leap for all puzzlekind.

Escalation!

Escalation!, despite the cartoon-enabled violence of its imagery, is actually a fun little card game from the prolific, multiple-award-winning Reiner Knizia.

There are 55 cards in the artfully illustrated deck. The cards are numbered 1-13. There are two special cards - the Neighborhood Watch and the wild cards.

Each player (from 2 to 6 players) is dealt 6 cards. On your turn, you must discard a card that is higher than the card(s) just played. I say "card(s)" because if you have two or more of the same rank, you can play as many of them as you want, raising the target number by the total of the numbers on the card(s) you play. So, if you have two 7s, and the current target number (the number last played) is 6, you can play one 7, raising the target number by one, or both 7s, raising the target number to 14.

The wild cards can be any number from 1-7. The "Neighborhood Watch" cards don't change the target number.

On your turn, if you can't play a card that is higher than the current target, you have to pick up all the cards played, and put them in a pile. You really don't want this pile, because every card you collect counts against you.

That's about it. The game takes about 5 minutes to learn and 10 minutes to play. Of course, you'll probably want to play it several times, perhaps several many.

Published by Z-Man Games, Escalation! is one of those somewhat mechanical games that require only some actual awareness, perhaps a little strategy, and yet prove to be a very welcome "filler" at any games gathering.

The game is nicely packaged in a well-made cardboard box (the kind with a lid). The rules are printed on one of the cards, so the whole thing gives you the feeling of something well- and thoughtfully-made, as if someone really cared about creating a game you could treasure.

Amuse Amaze

Amuse Amaze is a word game that is not quite like any word game you've ever played. It'll remind you maybe of Boggle, maybe of Scrabble, but it's something else, entirely.

There's a board. Actually, there are 18 boards which you assemble in different number and configuration, depending on how many people want to play (2-6). There are 88 plastic letter tiles in their own zip-lock, black baggie. Most of these tiles go onto the board in the empty blue squares. A few of these tiles go to each player, to be placed, oddly enough, face-up in front of the player. And there's a cute little question-mark-shaped playing piece for each player.

Wait - I'm still explaining.

One board is called the "Start" board. You can tell which board this is because in the center of it, writ large, is the word "Start." Taking a closer look at this board, you'll also notice that there are blue squares (the squares that get seeded with letter tiles), there are squares with letters printed on them. One square is dark brown, with a white letter K in the center. And, here and there, are squares with hedges on them.

There are also gardener cards. You get one of them. And cards of different color that correspond to each of the Target boards, about which you currently know nothing.

That about sums it up. Now to the fun part.

Your goal is to move your piece from the Start square on the Start card to the Target Square on each of the Target boards. You can tell they're Target boards because they include one or several letters in a different color - a color that matches those "cards of a different color" I told you about. You move your piece by making a word, letter-by-letter, from vertically, horizontally or diagonally adjacent squares (hence the Boggle-likeness). Now, as long as it is a real word, you really don't care about what word you make - because you don't get any points for making it. What you do get is a little closer to a Target square. O, sure, making a longer word is good, as is using one of the white letters, because this gives you an extra turn. But your verbal abilities don't count nearly as much as getting to each of the Target squares. I have to say this a couple times, see, because that's one of the things that makes this word game so very different.

As to all those letter tiles... If you use a letter tile in making a word, you get to pick it up. This is a good thing to do, because you can also lay letter tiles down as you go, placing them on top of whatever letter is printed on the board, hence making words where no words were there to be made.

Assembled, the whole board looks like a maze. There are even uncrossable maze-like hedges here and there, mostly where'd you least want them to be. You have a Gardener Card. Only one. And you can use that, only once, to cut through a hedge.

And, to further complicate things, other players are always getting in each other's way, which can be strategically astute and significantly frustrating.

Yet, despite all these strange new things, the game is surprisingly easy to understand, and even more surprisingly challenging. It is strategically deep, and significantly fun. Major, one might say, FUN.

Go Mental

Which of these doesn't belong?

guessing
challenge
knowledge
steal

Actually, if you're playing Go Mental from HL Games, they all belong. So that was a trick question, is what it was.

Go Mental is a trivia game. Not to trivialize it in any way. Because, despite what you think you know about trivia games, this one's unique. And it comes with 1000 questions. That's one thousand. On 500 cards. And that's a lot of cards. But it's what's on the cards, of course, that really counts.

Let me give you a better example. Not a trick question. A real one. From the actual game its veritable self. I begin:

?
Octopus
Squid
Scorpion
Spider

So, which of those things, as they frequently ask on Sesame Street, is not like the others? Did you say Octopus? Nope. Squid is the answer. Why? Because the other three have eight legs or tentacles. And the squid has, how many? That's right - ten.

Harder than you thought. And maybe you learned something, even.

The game is a race, like so many games of the trivia-type. And there's a race-track-like board. With 30 spaces. So you definitely get that race-like feeling - that sense of getting ahead and falling behind.

Then there are the Challenge Cards. Suppose you get a question, and you're not sure what the answer is. Or better yet, you get a question and you're pretty sure that a certain someone does not know the answer. So, you play a Challenge Card. If you're right about the other person, and he doesn't know the answer, he has to move backwards. Four spaces! O, the humanity! On the other hand, if he does in fact know the answer, he gets to move forward four spaces. Ha ha on you!

O, and the Steal Cards. Similar to the Challenge Cards in their card-likeness. But markedly different in drama and overall glee-potential. See, when it's someone else's turn, and you think you know the answer, and this someone else has not yet said anything answer-like, you may slap down one of your Steal cards, shout "Steal," and get to answer the question yourself. Now, when you Steal, you have to get both parts of the question right. That is, you have to not only identify which of the four items doesn't belong, but you also have to explain why. If you are correct on both counts, you get to move four spaces closer to the goal. Wrong? About either part? Guess what?

The Steal and Challenge cards are brilliant innovations in themselves, adding significantly to the excitement of the game, keeping everyone involved regardless of whose turn it is.

In theory, a game should last about a half-hour. The manufacturers even include a one-minute sand timer to use when people need the hint. There are enough pieces (little plastic brains, no less), to keep 6 players going, mentally speaking. You can also play in teams, which makes everything so much more party-like. Best thing about playing in teams, you don't have to take your own ignorance so personally.

Should you be so motivated and wish to include those of the younger persuasion (as young as 8), HL Games offers a supplemental deck of "Fundamental" questions, making it possible for the kids to Go Mental, so to speak, with or without you. O, the fun of it all!

Thomas Mix 'n Match Bingo Game

Finding a board game that you can play with your 3-year-old - and I mean really play - is a kind of quest. Something not too challenging or too shallow, that doesn't require reading, that engages the child's interest, and the interest of anyone who wants to play with a three-year-old - well, like I said, it's a quest.

Briarpatch's Thomas Mix 'n Match Bingo may not tax the conceptual mettle of your average 30-something, but if you're playing with your children, it will more than likely prove to be actual, engaging fun for all - especially if your child follows the Thomas the Tank Engine™ books or videos or TV shows.

Mix 'n Match Bingo goes significantly beyond your basic bingo. There are three dice. Each die represents a different attribute: the kind of train, the background color, and the border. When combined, these three attributes form a picture that your child must find on her Bingo board. The six game boards (folding, colorful, large enough so all the illustrations and attributes are easy to see) are each designed like a tic tac toe grid, with 9 different images. Bingo markers come in 6 different colors, and are made of pleasingly thick, high gloss chipboard.

The designers include a cooperative version using only one board (for younger children: 3+), a more competitive version in which players can match the images on any of the boards in use - winning as soon as they create a BINGO on any board (three of their own markers in a row). Then there's Super Mix and Match. All six boards are assembled into one big game board, and the winner of the game is the first to place all her chips on the board

Each of the three variations proves to be most playworthy. Coming up with a cooperative version for 3-year-olds is at least brilliant - one of the few children's games we've reviewed that acknowledges the nigh-impossibility of explaining to a tearful three year old that it's "only a game." The more complex versions add elements of competition and complexity to a cognitively rich task of matching three different attributes.

All in all, Thomas Mix 'n Match Bingo Games is fun enough, even for a three-year-old, to make most 30- and 40-somethings want to play it again, and again.

I Spy, Seeing Doubles

I Spy with my Little Eye, according to this source, is relatively new - first cited in the Winnipeg Free Press in December 1937. This may surprise the many parents who find themselves blessing the elegance of this little word game every time they find themselves driving the kids somewhere, or just hanging around with the kids waiting some place for something.

As you so well know, it is also a popular picture game, and the inspiration for several significantly educational games, produced by a collaboration between Briapatch Games and Scholastic.

I Spy, Seeing Doubles is a card and dice variation of this wonderfully familiar theme. There's a deck of 48, thick, oversized cards. Pictured on each card are three different objects. There are five large plastic dice. Four of the dice have pictures on them and determine what objects you are trying to find. The fifth die, the "Action Die," presents different game variants.

Players divide the deck of cards between them and arrange their cards in a stack to create a draw pile. One player rolls the game action die. Players then simultaneously turn over the top card on their draw pile to begin a "Target Pile," and roll their picture dice, hoping that their card will have one of the objects they see the picture dice. If they are successful, they turn over another card from their draw pile, placing it on face-up, on top of their Target Pile. They keep on playing until no match is possible, and then another player begins the next round, throwing the game action die to determine which variant to play. The first player to turn over all the cards in her Draw pile wins.

If the Action Die shows the "Seeing Doubles" icon, players can also look for matches on their opponents' Target Piles, and discard their matching cards to their opponents piles..

The game is most definitely designed by people who understand kids and fun. Learning the game only takes a few minutes. Playing simulataneously keeps everyone involved. The game action die adds variety. And the challenge of matching images in two different contexts (die and card) remains visually and cognitively intriguing.

Recommended for 2-4 players, ages 5 to 10, the game proves to be as educationally appropriate as it is fun.

Halli Galli

Halli Galli is probably the fastest, easiest to learn, slap your hand down first kind of slap jack-like card game with a bell good enough for a concierge, in the world. And it's got that added, slightly arithmo-perceptuo challenge that makes you have to stop, look and count, and it's that very slight challenge that makes Halli Galli Major, I kid you not, FUN.

The hotel-worthy bell adds yet another je ne c'est qua to the mise en scene, as it were, so to speak. It's loud. Pleasantly, reveberationingly bell-like in tone. But loud. And the bell-dinger is, like the bell, made of metal, and it's small and round, and slapping it can honestly hurt. Especially when it's your hand, and you're a kid, and your father's very manlike hand is on top of yours in a nano-slap. And yet, it's a remarkably kid-worthy, and grown-up party-worthy game. Just, perhaps, not family-worthy, just because of the noise and sheer excitement and pain-potential of it all.

You get a deck of 56 cards. The cards have pictures of fruit on them. You know, fruit, like apples and bananas. Only some cards have like three apples on them and some have just one banana and some have two apples and a strawberry, too. You deal out all the cards. Everybody, at the same time, reveals their top card. If there happen to be, between all the players, exactly five of any fruit (I did say exactly), the first person to ring the bell wins all the face-up cards. And so you go, simulflipping, looking for exactly 5 of exactly the same, flipping again, more and more cards being added to the discard piles with every flip.

From AMIGO Spiel & Freizeit GmbH, and made available in the US by Rio Grande Games, Halli Galli can be played by 2-6 players, the more the crazier. You can play it with kids as young as six and with adults of all phases. It takes maybe 5 minutes to learn and 15 minutes to play a single round. And you will play many rounds.

Mother Sheep

Mother Sheep, from Playroom Entertainment, has 10, cute little plastic lambs, and 10 cute little plastic lamb cardboard, name-plated lamb-standing places. 80 fences, of different and oft-multiple colors, a deck of lamb cards and a lamb corral. There are 18 lamb cards. On each card there are five lamb names. Pick a card and be the first player to fence in your given lambs.

Since there are 18 cards, it is quite likely that you will end up with at least one shared lamb. If not several. That's quite fine. As long as the lambs are fenced, it doesn't matter actually who does the fencing.

As for the fencing: After you've placed all you lambs in some array, close to the mother sheep, but not too close, and not too close to each other, either, the rest of the game is about laying down fence rails. The array-setting is of course very important, since the position of each lamb relative to each other lamb is chock full of strategic significance. You can lay them anywhere in any angle (there's no board), but you have to make sure that they overlap another fence, and where they overlap, they match colors. Since the fence pieces can have as many as three different color bands, of any width, it can be quite a challenge to find an appropriately matching fence post.

You take three fence posts from the Fence Post Bag. These are your secret fence posts. Your secret fence post stock never gets replenished. So, even though you can use them any time during the game, you have to use them with care. You also get to draw three more fence posts for immediate play. Since you're trying to corral 5 different sheep, you'll always have at least one fence post that's worth playing.

As I said, there is no board. As I also said, the positions of everything - the lambs, the Mother Sheep, the cardboard fence posts - is of dire strategic consequence. This is not a bonus feature - especially if you are playing with the clumsy-prone. On the other hand, it's fun, not having a board while playing such a strategic, board-like game. And strategically speaking, it's complex enough to be worthy of pondering, but simple enough in principle to be understood and enjoyed, even by the younger player.