Incan Gold

Incan Gold is another "press your luck" game, different enough from all other "press your luck"-like games to be just as fun, and just as worthy of your seriously playworthy consideration.

It doesn't take long to learn, it takes only about 20 minutes to play, and the joyful luck-pressing can be shared by 3, or as many as 8 players. You do have to spend some time arranging the cards, but, after the first time you play, all that card arranging adds to the anticipation of a significantly fun experience of engaging each other in an intense exploration of the various wages of caution and greed.

The game is played in 5 rounds. A round begins by drawing a "Quest card" from the pile, turning it over, and placing it face-up next to one of the "Temple cards." The card that is revealed can either be a Treasure card, an Artifact, or a Hazard. If it is a Treasure, the players divide it between them, placing small plastic pieces in front of their personal treasuries (in front, and not inside, because the Treasure can't be claimed until someone has taken it safely out of the Temple). If it is an Artifact, it will be added to the treasury of the first player to remove it from the Temple. If it is a Hazard, there's no score. If a second Hazard of the same type is drawn later on in the round, all the potential treasures and artifacts are lost. All those little plastic, colored crystal-in-the-rough-shaped pieces... They go back. And nobody gets to keep them. Nobody. Not even you.

Once a card is placed on the table, players all have the option to go forward and reveal the next card, or to leave the Temple and collect the goodies indicated by the graphically rendered significance appearing on the card.

On the other hand, before the next Quest card can be revealed, you all, simultaneously, flash one of two cards on to the conceptual table. One card shows that you want to go forward, as it were, into the Temple, and seek greater fortune. The other, that you want to "leave the temple" immediately.

If one and only one of you flashes the card that symbolizes the decision to "leave the temple" already, that player, you, for example, get to take all the exposed Artifact Cards as your very own. Heh. Heh. Hey. If you're not the only one leaving, you and your fellow leavers share the pretty plastic pieces potentially accumulated and put them into a little tent you made out of a folded card. And nobody gets the Artifacts. Heh, hey. But you don't play any more for the rest of the round. Also hey, hey, hey.

Incan Gold is produced by Sunriver Games and is also available from Funagain. An earlier form of Incan Gold, Diamant, was published in Germany by Schmidt Speile, and was also was also available from Funagain.

Hyper-Slide

Hyper-Slide, true to its name, involves sliding, and a level of activity which can accurately be described as "hyper."

There are 4 pucks. Each is a different color. There's a bridge which serves as a goal, as it were, and sometimes as a net, more-or-less. On top of the bridge are two buttons that light up. Go ahead, press one. Wait. First, put the batteries in. OK, now press one of the two light-up buttons.

The, shall we say, "Hypehost," filled with youthful, gameshowhost-like enthusiasm, says: "Hyperslide!" Then: "Choose the game you want, then press the button to get started."

One of the buttons is lit, so you press that one. "1)Fast Pass," says the Hyperhost, to gameshow-like musical accompaniment, "2) Add One," it continues, "3) Code Buster 4) Fast Pass Head to Head 5) Add One Head to Head." So you hit the blinking button.

"Fast Pass. The All Time Score is 52 Passes. Red begins." Says the Hyperhost.

And the light starts blinking and the music starts playing. So you throw a Yellow puck through the goal. And the voice says "Red Begins." So you throw the Blue through. And it says "Red Begins." So you throw the green one through. And the music is playing. And finally you throw the Red puck through. And the voice says "Red." So you throw the Blue through. And the music ends and the Hyperhost says: "You should have played Red: And it asks "play this game again or play another game?" And both buttons flash.

And then you realize that you really need two people to play. Unless maybe you install that "Cyber-rubber-band"ish thing across the goal.

The fun of each of the 4 games is greatly enhanced by the voice, musical timing, ability to know which of 4 pucks you slide through it, or don't, and very long memory of the Hyperhost.

You do what the Hyperhost tells you to do as fast as it tells you to do for as long as you can. And the Hyperhost creates the challenge, taunting you with its ability to rembember the score, forever, until you reset it.

Given only two flashing buttons and 4 different-colored pucks, a Hyperhost with a good sense of timing, like the one in Cyber-Slide, can put the proverbial partridge back into your conceptual pear tree.

This Hyperhost leads you in at least three games. Or five. Or ten. Depending on what you play and how you play them and how many people play - from one to probably four.

Fast Pass: slide the color puck the Hyperhost tells you to, and only that color puck, in maybe 90 seconds, as often as you can while the music gets faster and so does the Cyberhost.

Add One: like the game of Simon, you have to slide an ever increasing repeating series of pucks, puck-by-puck.

Code Buster - slide whatever works until you happen to slide the right ones across the goal. try to do it faster next time.

Fast Pass - Head to Head: Fast Pass for two. Hyperbandlessly.

Add One - Head to Head: Also Hyperbandlessly, Add One - for also 2. Or 4 especially even. Though playing by yourself is also fun, even.

Self-storing, with an almost intuitive game design, Hyper-Slide provides for many different levels of physical and cognitive challenge, featuring clear, but mild-mannered Hyperhost that acknowledges your success without rubbing your face in your failures. All-in-all, Hyper-Slide is Major FUN. For the whole actual family.

From: Hasbro.

Chaos

It looks like some kind of tic-tac-toe game. Nice wooden board. Nice wooden pieces. But it's not tic-tac-toe. Nope, not in the least. It's Chaos, from Mindware - a wonderfully addictive, two-player strategy game - easy to learn, and surprisingly subtle.

First thing you have to realize: you're most definitely not trying to get anything in a row. Instead, you're trying to be the first player to get rid of all of your pieces. That takes care of anything you might have thought you already knew about the game.

As in tic-tac-toe, the game is played on a 3x3 grid. Each player has 12 pieces. On a turn, you can play on any open space, or on top of any previously played piece. If your move results in the creation of a stack of 4 pieces, you must disassemble that stack, moving each piece in that stack to a horizontally or vertically adjacent stack (or space). This is done in a clockwise order, beginning with the space or stack directly in front of the stack you are disassembling, and proceeding in a clockwise fashion. When you dismantle a stack on any of the eight peripheral spaces, one of the pieces of the stack has no where go. That piece gets eliminated.

When a stack of three is adjacent to several stacks of three, your move causes a chain reaction - creating more stacks of four, each of which has to be disassembled, resulting in yet more stacks and yet more pieces to eliminate. If you're not careful, you can easily help your opponent win.

Though the game is ostensibly for 2 players, we played it with four, in two teams of two. And there, yet another surprise awaited us. Because of the method of unstacking (always begin with the space or stack directly in front of the stack you are disassembling), where exactly we were each sitting relative to the board took on an added strategic significance.

There is nothing chaotic about the game of Chaos. It is a game of pure strategy. But there is a lot of surprise, and, surprisingly often, moments of sheer glee. All-in-all, most clearly Major FUN.

Imaginiff - the card game

You've undoubtedly read about the Major FUN-worthy game of Imaginiff, and made careful note of our unabashed enthusiasm for the aforementioned. This all should prove useful in helping you understand why we are so exceptionally delighted to introduce you to Buffalo Games most recent Imaginiff-like accomplishment: Imaginiff - the card game.

It's somewhat of a significant accomplishment, actually, for all playkind: For the designers, making a successful translation from the board game to a card game format. For the traveler, who needs games that are portable and can be played almost anywhere (restaurant, hotel lobby, ship deck, motel room). The mechanics are simple and efficient. You get a write-on/wipe-off card and marker (the marker even has an eraser on it - which comes in demarkably handy), a die, 68 question cards, and 6 voting cards. The write-on/wipe-off card is used for score keeping and to keep track of who gets to be the subject of the question. The die is determines who's going to get talked about. And the question cards ask things like: "Imaginiff ______ were a flying object. Which would he/she be: A Blimp, B Biplane, C Glider, D Lear jet, E Brick." Players vote, and those who agree each get a point. If the person who asks the question also agrees, s/he gets an additional point

A subtle, but very useful variable in both versions of the game: the six people who are to be the subjects of the Imaginiff questions can be anyone at all, real or fictional, the people you're playing with, or anybody else you all know. So, when you're playing with people you don't really know that well, and are maybe wisely concerned that someone might not share your sense of humor, you can choose to have all imaginary players, or athletes, or movie stars, or politicians, even.

Most assuredly Major FUN.

Mirror-aculous® Art Activities

Every now and then it becomes my privilege, as your personal Major FUN, to bring you news about a toy or game company that has found a way to transform the commonplace into the extraordinary. See, for example, my story on a renewed approach to connect-the-dots puzzles. Note especially how enthusiastically you found me waxing.

Today I find myself once again waxing my enthusiasm.

You have, of course, heard of the anamorphoscope, and all the various wonders connected thereto, ranging in wonderworthiness from the, shall we say, "mirror-aculous" works of Leonardo Da Vinci to the many photo-marvels of cinematic illusion?

Have you by any chance also heard of the toy company that has brought this most delightfully illusion-prone technology to the hearts and hands of children - a company called, now say it with me, "OOZ & OZ?"

Like the artist/developer of those transformed connect-the-dots puzzles, Myrna Hoffman, the founder of OOZ & OZ, has managed to make a common coloring-book-like activity into something wonderfully new and deeply engaging. Again, like the connect-the-dots artist, she has explored this new visual twist in great depth and with equally deep devotion.

The technology centers on a thin sheet of mirrored Mylar, which, wrapped around a paper cup, becomes a kind of anamorphoscope - anamorphoscopic enough to make it possible to view and create anamorphs. The art is in the remarkable variety of packages and activities that Ms. Hoffman has created.

To get a feel for that variety, take a look at the Art Activities Kit. It comes with two mirrored cups, a box of crayons, and 32 pages of anamorphic images to color. Coloring an anamorphic drawing is a challenge in itself. If you try coloring the image without referring to the reflection, you can't really tell what you're coloring. If you try to color the drawing while looking at the reflection, you have an eye-hand coordination challenge of significantly amusing profundity. I called Myrna and asked her what she recommended: to do the coloring while looking at the reflection or just to look directly at the paper. Her answer: "yes."

In addition to the coloring activities there are drawings where you color-only-the-spaces-with-two-dots, incomplete drawings that you try to fill in by connecting dots, other, even more incomplete drawings that don't even have dots to guide you, and mazes - all transformed by the anamorphic challenge.

The kit itself comes in a cleverly designed box that can be used to transport the entire collection as well as a portable, laptop desk for that anamorph-anywhere experience.

Another, and even more affordable package is designed for parties - you get eight large anamorphed placemats, eight mirror wraps (Mylar sheets that you wrap around a paper cup), and instructions for "bonus activities." These are very reasonably priced, and perfect for an art class, a session of therapeutic art for seniors, or a family gathering. My wife, who has taught art for many years, noted that the anamorph activity is an excellent way to help teach novice artists to learn to "draw what you see, rather than to draw what you think you see."

You can even get a custom morph of pretty much any image you send them.

Ms. Hoffman's sensibilities, to affordability, to children, to play, to art, science and learning; to ecological concerns, are everywhere evident.

We're talking Major FUN.