Monday, November 16, 2009

PitchCar

PitchCar is a puck-flicking, car-racing game of skill and cunning for people as young as six and as old as can still walk around a table. It can get as tense as the Indy 500 without ever getting too serious to laugh about. It can be played as a race against everybody or a race between teams, as a polite game of luck and skill or a cutthroat game of strategic blocking and violent crashing. And there are at least as many ways to build it as there are to play.

The building part is wonderfully easy, though it just as easily can become a studied, exacting, and creative exploration. The tracks fit together with ease, like large jig-saw pieces. Grooves on the sides of the tracks easily accommodate flexible plastic rails. The basic set consists of 16 pieces of track: ten curving and six straight, 16 "safety barriers" - lengths of plastic railing, and eight cars (wooden pucks), each of a different color. There is also a sticker sheet used to decorate the pucks and create the start/finish line. This is enough for you to create ten different "circuits," each a serious twelve-feet long. The "cars" are propelled by any appropriate finger-flick - though some may prefer a finger push or slide.

With a little imagination, and the select incorporation of pieces of cardboard, Popsicle sticks and other household miscellany, many different kinds of tracks can be build. And, if you can find any loose checker pieces or bottle caps, you can significantly expand the fleet. If you need a little more than your collective imagination has to offer, we'd strongly recommend that you consider the additional purchase of, say, PitchCar Extension 1.

Designed by Jean du Poël, PitchCar is what people call an "heirloom game" - a term frequently used to describe a game, the purchase of which approaches a serious investment, and the promise of which is generation-spanning. It is easy enough to build and play to prove of interest to most first-graders, yet it can just as easily be made complex and challenging enough to be taken quite seriously by the mature gamer.

The designer also suggests two variations. One, called "The Pursuit," is played by two players or two teams of players. One team starts ahead, the other tries to catch up. Another variant, "The Trash Variation," players can try to knock each others' cars off the track (in the standard game, you would lose a turn). These two variations hint at another dimension of the game that can be readily explored, namely, the rules. What if we played in teams of two, one player always trying to position their puck to block other players? What if we played in two different teams, started at the starting line, but each team driving in the opposite direction? How about if we each had two moves per turn? What would happen, wondered a few of our Tasters, if we had fashioned special sticks for puck propulsion. Could we become yet even more skilled, our control even that much more precise, the distance covered in a single turn even that much greater?

At a games party, PitchCar offers a welcome balance to the more serious and sedentary strategic entertainments. At the dining room table, it provides a rewarding after dinner, after homework opportunity for the whole family to relax and celebrate each other. Competitive without meaning anything important about anyone. Cooperation without becoming tedious. An invitation to experimentation and creativity. An opportunity for genuine, good-natured fun. Fun of just the right, as it were, pitch. Major FUN, that is.

Labels: Dexterity, Family Games, Kids Games, Party Games

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Thursday, November 12, 2009

The Caravan Game

The HABA Caravan Game looks like a game for kids. Don't get me wrong, it really is a game that kids will play, and enjoy. The cards and thick, folding board with funny illustrations by Gabriela Silveira, the cute little wooden camel playing pieces (which are easier to play with when they're lying down)...all appeal to people who think of themselves as kids. But the game proves to be deep, engaging, and challenging enough to attract serious consideration from those who think of themselves as adults.

Each of up to four players gets a set of 12 cards. The cards are the same for every player. You shuffle your cards, place your them, face-down, in a stack in front of you, and then draw three of them for your hand. From then on, you play one from your hand, discard, and select a new card from your pile.

Seven of the cards show either one, two, three, or four palm trees. These are the Oasen-Karten. Oops, excuse me, I was reading the German rules. Oasis cards. These cards tell you how many spaces you can move a camel forward. Three of the cards are cartes de mirage. O, silly I, those are the French rules. Mirage cards. Each of the three depict one, two or three palm trees, shimmering in a mirage-like manner. These cards let you move any one of your opponent's camels backwards the corresponding number of board spots (not literally squares, but they function the same way). Then there's one Cameleer card, which allows you to move any one of your camels one board spot in front of the lead camel - anyone's lead camel. Unless, of course, that camel has already reached the oasis. Finally, and most interestingly, there's the carta della tempesta di sabbia (or, as the English say, "the Sandstorm Card"). When this is played, everyone must pick up all 12 of their cards, shuffle them, deal themselves three, and continue the trek.

Since everyone has the same cards, you can, more or less, predict (depending on how good your memory is) what your opponent/s might play. Since you always have three cards to choose from, you can delay using your more powerful cards for a more strategically significant moment. If you can save the Sandstorm card for just the right moment, you can get what will hopefully prove a better hand, and prevent your opponent/s from using theirs.

Hajo Bücken has designed a fascinating little game. It can be learned very quickly, and played in as few as ten minutes. One rule that significantly speeds up the game - when you're counting how many spots you can move, you don't count the camel-occupied spots. So, if there are, say, three camels in a row in front of you, and you play your one-palm Oasis card, you get, in one move, to move your camel 4 spots closer to the oasis. This is so much fun that we recommend that when you have only two players, you use two sets of camels each.

Finally, there's getting to the oasis. There are only six oasis spots. The furthest forward is worth four points, the two behind that three points, and the three behind those, two points. Once your camel reaches any of those spots, it can no longer move. Probably because it just doesn't want to. I mean, after that long hot trek across the mirage-filled desert, getting to all that cool water and delicious dates.... Which means that, strategically, and perhaps metaphorically speaking, it's not always so good to be the first camel to reach the oasis. Especially when you take into account the jumping-over-camel-occupied spots rule.

Fun of a surprisingly major kind for a surprisingly wide range of ages and abilities.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Monday, November 02, 2009

HABA Ball Run

The HABA Ball Track Building Set is, by all measures, a toy to treasure. Made of European Beechwood, the pieces are beautifully finished, and a pleasure to touch, lift, position, reposition. The basic set includes just enough ready-made sections of track and tunnels to make the purpose of the toy immediately accessible, and more than enough building elements to invite curiosity, imagination and endless elaboration. The HABA Ball Track Building set will engage children in hours of play, exploration, design, construction and, above all, experimentation.

The fact is, that any construction toy that involves building marble runways, even one made of plastic, provides children with a near perfect environment for gaining the basic understanding of and appreciation for the processes that are central to all scientific pursuits. Given a set with a variety of both construction and track elements, creating a marble runway that really works invites observation and testing, experimentation and patience, refinement and repetition, elaboration and further testing.

Children are sensitive creatures, and though they may not express a specific preference for wood over plastic, the warmth, heft and precision of this thoughtfully made wooden toy will deepen and enrich the play experience for as long as they continue to play.

Though the HABA Ball Track Building set provides everything needed for many, many hours of absorbing fun, there are supplemental sets available that extend the value of the set, renewing the invitation to play by introducing new properties and functions. We tried the Cascade (a zig-zag, waterfall-like box that makes a lovely sound as marbles drop through), the Speed Track (a long, high ramp, that, as advertised, makes the marble go very fast, prompting new explorations of what you can make the system do), and the Score Counter (adding a random, but fun way to compete). But were most excited by the HABA Games for HABA Balltrack an extension that significantly adds to the overall play value of the entire set. It, in fact, redefines the set by introducing the idea of games.

The ball run is not a game. It's a construction toy, the object of which is to build something - not play something. By adding games to the set, the entire toy gets redefined. Suddenly, there are rules, social structures, so many more variables to play with, which, in turn, get extended and redefined by the nature of the toy.

For example, the set of miniature nine-pins (wooden, of course - 8 natural color, one red). So now the child has something to aim for. How many rolls will it take before she can knock down all the pins? Who can knock down the most? Can you knock all the pins down except for the red one? Should you use the large marbles? Roll them down the special large marble ramp? Both ramps? Should you both roll your marbles at the same time, from opposite sides? Should you use the large marbles to hit the small marbles so that they roll into the pins? Should you use the small marbles to hit the large? Should the small marbles have to be launched from the very beginning of the entire marble run? Can you re-aim a ramp while a marble is rolling? And then there are the three arches - targets to roll through. One is worth three points, another only two, and a third, the widest, only one point. Where do you put those arches? Where does the marble have to come from?

And then there's the floor, the whole room - everything becomes a target or an additional obstacle or another ramp. With the game extension, the whole Ball Run takes its place in the child's world, becomes one aspect of a small universe of things to roll at and under and through, becomes even more of a shared thing, an invitation to play that your child can extend to his family and siblings and community.

Labels: Dexterity, Kids Games, Tops for 2009, Toys

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Friday, October 16, 2009

Le Pass Trappe

Le Passe Trappe is a fast, somewhat furious, slightly noisy, significantly fun action game for two.

Note the elastic band on either end of the well-made, wood-framed board. Now cast your conceptual glance to the small, slightly-larger-than-a-puck opening in the center. Add to this the observation that there are 10 pucks. That's pretty much all you need to understand how the game is played.

The two players each start out with 5 pucks apiece. They shake hands and then, simultaneously, use their elastic bands to try to shoot all the pucks that are on their side through the opening and on to the other player's side of the board. The first player to clear her side of the board is the winner.

That's the basic game. There's a 45-second sand-timer, pegs and scoring holes on either side of the board for those wishing to explore more formal, tournament-like versions, or perhaps even solitaire (can you get all 10 checkers through to the other side before the timer runs out). The basic game is most definitely fun. In fact, one could easily say that it is Major FUN. During the three or maybe five minutes of play, you are totally absorbed - the noise, the speed, the challenge all combine to keep you engrossed. You can play again and again, and get very competitive about the whole game, without even needing to keep score. When there are a bunch of people who want to play, you can make it the rule that the winner gets to play someone new. In the mean time, the rest of the players can spend their relatively short wait cheering and jeering with equally passionate intensity.

Designed by Jean-Marie Albert, Le Passe Trappe is available in three different sizes. We Tasted the mid-size, because that's the way we are. But they all play alike and are sure to prove a good investment, for kids, for the family, at a games night or party, at a neighborhood event or sleep-over.

Labels: Dexterity, Family Games, Kids Games

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Thursday, October 08, 2009

For Sale

Stefan Dorra's auction game For Sale is another surprisingly engaging game from Fred Distribution. You get a set of 30, well-illustrated Property Cards (by artist Alvin Madden), another set of 30 Currency Cards, and a collection of 72 thick, cardboard coins, worth either one- or two-thousand conceptual dollars.

Before we go into detail about the design and mechanics of the game, allow me to leap to a conclusion: This is a remarkable little game - easy to learn, sweetly short (maybe 15 minutes), engaging from beginning to end, bringing people (3-6 players, ages 8 and up) closely together, almost always surprising, almost always making people laugh. Play it between games, play it to open or cap a game session, play it after dinner, play it before bed. Play it once. Play it again and again all evening long. Play it with strangers or friends or family, even. And it's still fun.

Aside from the elegance of the execution and cleverness of the design, what makes this game so successful is the interaction between players. It's all about learning each other: trying to predict what other people will do while remaining inscrutably unpredictable. Like a friendly game of poker, only friendlier, lighter-of-heart, and without any consequences other than fun, and getting to know each other a little better, and surprising each other a little more often.

The game is played in two phases. In the first phase, Property Cards are dealt out (3-6, depending on the number of players), face-up. Players then take turns, bidding for the card of the highest value, unless, of course, they are so taken by the clever illustrations that they start bidding for the property that looks the most fun (ooh, a tree house!). Which may be counterproductive in terms of things like winning, but fun's fun, and who can put a value on that?

The bidding process is unique and very efficient. After the first player makes her bid, the next either bids higher or passes. If you pass, you get the lowest-value Property Card. If you've already bid, take back half your bid (rounded down), and give the rest to the bank. If you continue, you must increase the bid. When all but one player have passed, that player gets the property of his choice and gives all his bid to the bank. This phase continues until all the Property Cards have been sold. If you're too enthusiastic of a bidder, you'll probably run out of coins before all the Property Cards are used up. Not to worry. You may not get the properties you want, but you'll still get something.

Once all the Property Cards are sold, the "real" part of the game begins. Now, players use the values of their Property Cards to bid for Currency Cards, whose value ranges from zero to $15,000. Here, the bidding process is a bit more familiar. Again, as many Currency Cards as there are players are dealt face-up on to the table. All players select one of their Property Cards, place it face-down on the table, and then simultaneously reveal their bid. The player whose Property Card has the highest gets the first choice of Currency Cards. The next highest gets the next choice, etc. Property Cards that were bid are returned to the bank and the next group of Currency Cards is revealed. This continues until all Property Cards have been used. Players then add up the value of all their Currency Cards and any remaining money coins. The player with the highest score wins.

It pays to conserve, it pays to observe, it pays to remember what cards have already been played, it pays to remember how risky or conservative people tend to be. It pays to play. Not in money, maybe. But in fun, most definitely. Major FUN.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games

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Monday, October 05, 2009

Worm up!

There's something gently lovable about Worm up! O, it's fun, all right. Major FUN, in actual fact. But it's funny, too. And so spare in its design that it's what you might call endearing.

The colorful little game box contains 5 sets (each in a different color) of 7 wooden hemispheres. These are used to make worms - take a set, put the hemispheres, hemi-side down, in a column, and there you have it, your basic worm.

Then there are 4 black cylinders. Also wooden. And some cardboard pieces. Thick, durable cardboard to be sure. One of these pieces serves as the finish line, and two of the cylinders fit on either end of it. The other two cylinders are placed about 2-feet away to create the starting line. The other cardboard pieces are also in 5 sets. Each set consists of 5 rectangular tokens, numbered 4, 5, 6, and 7, and one with an X on it.

Once the goal and starting line are set up, players line-up their worms. Each of the 3 to 5 players selects one of the cardboard tokens, places that token face-down on the table, and turns their tokens over simultaneously. Players who have chosen the same number token don't get to move their worms. The others move their worms, one segment at a time, starting from the last segment, and sliding that segment to the head of the worm, the player who chose the lowest number going first. The X token allows you to either move your worm (any number that hasn't been already chosen) or move the goal (which takes on evermore strategic significance as the game progresses). To move the goal, you put your finger on one of the cylinders (anchoring it), and then, with your finger on the other cylinder, rotate the goal as far as you want to.

You can move your worm in any manner you wish, positioning pieces so as to make it twist and turn to block your opponents, as long as each worm piece is placed adjacent to the piece most recently moved to the head of the worm. Even though you're just sliding these little wooden half-domes from the back to the font of the line, as the game progresses, the worms seem to move in a wonderfully wriggly, worm-like fashion. Because the pieces are so simple, the illusion is that much more powerful.

And of course trying to predict what tile the other players might choose so you can choose differently is endlessly surprising, turn after turn.

The game takes maybe 10 minutes to play, though we had to play it twice before we felt that the game was over, and then had to have a quite serious discussion about why we should really be playing it at least one more time. It's good for families whose kids are a precocious 7 or older. It's good for kids. It's a good game to play between more serious games. Gentle fun. A happy little diversion.

If I were Alex Randolph, the designer of the game, I would consider it a minor masterwork. And I would take equal delight in the production quality. The packaging is very spare - very little space is wasted. The rules are brief and easy to learn.

There's a quote by Randolph on the side of the box. I think it explains much about why his game is as fun, and as elegant as it is:

"Somehow," he writes, "I feel that boardgames are the beginning of everything truly human, and so, ultimately, of the highest human endeavors, especially those which I find most precious, because they have no purpose outside themselves. They are, themselves, their purpose. Poetry, art, music, story telling, pure mathematics, pure science, philosophy...all are spiritual luxuries. Luxuries are things that delight us, that we long to possess, but that we can very well do without. They are not practical. They are not needed for our survival. And board games? Board games are luxuries, too, of course, albeit minor and marginal, but in the sense of non-utility, perhaps the purest."

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Tops for 2009

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Friday, August 28, 2009

Connect 4x4

If you've ever played Connect Four, you'll immediately understand the attraction of playing with three or four players. With two players, you've got strategy. With three or four, you've got politics. Sometimes, you just have to cooperate with the very people you are competing against, just to keep someone else from winning. Such is the nature of playing with more than two.

And it's prettier - having four colors instead of two. Colored rings, even.

But that's just part of what makes this game so worthy of our collective consideration. The other part is the channels that accommodate the ex-checker rings. They're double-wide, double-sided. Which means that two rings fit where only one ring used to. And you win regardless of whether your ring is in the front or back of a channel - as long as there are four-in-a-row of your color.

There are also two "blocker" pieces for each color. Double-wide themselves, they fit into both sides of a channel. The blockers are powerful pieces, which is why you only have two of them, which is why you have to conserve them, which is what makes the game all the more inviting for people who like to ponder.

The strategic implications of all this are profound and subtle. Profound enough to make you have to rethink pretty-much everything you know about how to win Connect Four, subtle enough to make the game challenging enough to attract an adult audience, and perhaps too challenging for younger children. But, like Connect Four, the mechanics of dropping checkers into different columns, of being able to empty the entire board by moving the retaining wall on the bottom are still very much present, and at least fascinating enough to keep the toy-value of the game as playworthy as the game itself.

Hasbro has been full of gleeful surprises of late. Though they've been releasing new versions of their licensed products for a while, they have taken great efforts, in most cases, to make sure that the new releases are also new games - different enough from their predecessors to be worthy of serious consideration. Elegant enough to be easy to learn and to invite players to develop their own variations. Fun enough to sustain many hours of thought-provoking, deeply engaging play.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Monday, August 24, 2009

Ring-o Flamingo

Ring-O Flamingo, a.k.a. "The Frantic Fling-a-Ring Game," is, as advertised, a game that is at least as much about ring-flinging as it is about being frantic.

Each player gets one of 4 plastic "lifeboats" each of a different color, each containing a set of 12 flat, flexible, plastic, lifesaver-like rings of a matching color. The rings are placed, one at a time, edgewise in a slot in the front of the lifeboat. To fling the ring, you aim your lifeboat, slot a ring, bend the ring towards you just exactly as much as you think necessary and then release it.

Your goal, should you be goal-oriented, is for your ring to land, quoit-like, around any of the 7 plastic flamingos (yes, plastic flamingos), and not around either of the two plastic alligators.

The flamingos and alligators fit into slots in the thick game board. Turned 90-degrees, they stand firmly enough to resist and staunchly deflect any inaccurately flung rings. The board is thick enough to withstand repeated reassembly.

Ringing an alligator is a bad thing to do and makes you lose two points. You get 2 points for each of your rings that is first to ring a flamingo, and one point for each of your subsequent flamingo-ringing ring.

Since everyone plays simultaneously, mastering the "frantic" part of this "Frantic Fling-a-Ring" game is as crucial to success as good aim. Since being the first to ring a particular flamingo gets you twice as many points, the need for speed is clearly established. And, of course, the faster you fling, the less accurate you become. The tension makes the game even more challenging, and instructive.

On the other hand, ring-flinging is so much fun that it almost doesn't matter whether you manage to get a ring around anything. It's as amusing just to fling the rings at each other, or to see how far or how high you can fling them. Which is what makes the game as alluring to a three-year-old as to your seriously competitive eleven-teen. You can try to fling rings into the box lid or against the wall (extra points for "leaners"). And for those families fortunate enough to have playful parents, it's a great invitation to share some moments of controlled and victimless mayhem.

Designed by Haim Shafir, Yakov Kaufman, and Yoav Ziv, the game works wondrously well. All the parts of the game reinforce the fantasy: the lifesaver rings, the ring-storing and flinging boats, the brightly colored and humorously rendered flamingos. The ring-flingers can be repositioned anywhere around the board to increase aim and accuracy. The rings themselves are exactly as springy as they need to be to flip and fly. And there is just enough luck to keep anyone from getting overbearingly good at the game. Hence the Majorness of the FUN.

Ring-O Flamingo is exciting and alluring enough to be played and replayed by everyone in the family. There are a lot of rings (48 of them). Hence, parents would be especially wise to include in their rendition of basic game rules the tradition of after-game ring-gathering.

Labels: Dexterity, Family Games, Keeper, Kids Games

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Thursday, August 06, 2009

Travel Litterbug

If you were a Jack-in-the-Box who wanted to be game, Litter Bugs is what you'd be.

You'd be just as surprising, suspenseful, and almost as frightening, as a good jack-in-the box, but unpredictably and instead of getting cranked, people would take turns pressing your buttons, never knowing which one of eight was going to make you pop, having one less choice with each passing of the trash can.

You might not be a toy trash can, per se. Or a trash can with such an evil, oddly smirking face, as illustrated. But if you were a toy trash can with a toy trash cad lid, attached, beneath which a large, very fly-looking plastic fly lies ready..
to.......
pop-up.

To play the surprisingly one-piece Travel Litter Bugs game, one of you presses down on the plastic fly - all the way down until the fly, well, clicks. Close the lid. Randomly select any randomly selected button. Push it down. Give the trash can to one of your partner/opponents. Let them push down any of the other still unpushed-down buttons. And so on and so on, button-by-button, until there are, for example, only two buttons left and it's your turn and you still can never tell which is going to release the fly, which, just as you press the other button, suddenly pops straight up, forcefully flipping open the toy lid in satisfyingly complete surprise.

You can play with it by yourself, with you friends, you can play with it as a toy, you can play it to decide who goes first. (Rocky and I were play/working on a puzzle together, using the toy as a kind of victory timer. Every time one of us would get a piece in, we'd get/have to press a different button.)

Travel Litterbugs is an elegant, well-designed toy/game, for children of any persuasion. As decisive as a game of Rock/Scissors/Paper, fun as a jack-in-the-box, and about as long to play. Major FUN!

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, library, Toys

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Wednesday, July 22, 2009

The Bilibo Game Box - a child's tool kit for game invention

The Bilibo Game Box is not just a toy. It is a tool kit for the very young game designer (age 4 and up) and an invitation to inventiveness for the rest of us.

The Game Box contains a die with interchangeable faces and six sets of differently-colored discs that fit in each face. There's also a set of six, plastic, hand-sized "mini-Bilibos," in each of the six colors corresponding to the colors of the discs.

Bilibos are shaped something like pregnant plastic Pringles, with holes that look almost like eyes. Full-sized Bilibos are big enough for a kid to sit, spin, rock, float, climb in or on, or pretend with. The simple, friendly, colorful design invites creativity, exploration, and invention, and nurtures playfulness. No moving parts. Just a funny shape to explore, define, redefine, shape your dreams on. Mini-Bilibos are just as strange, just as funny, just as fun to play with. And, as son-in-law Tom observed, function quite satisfactorily as doll helmets.

The die is called a Bilibo Pixel. It is made of some surprisingly bouncy and slightly stretchy plastic. The corners are so wonderfully rounded that it rolls as well as bounces almost as well as a rubber ball. Button-like pieces fit in each of the faces of the die where there are cavities deep enough not only to accommodate any of the discs, but also to fit little messages or prizes, or, if you are so inclined, weights. So you can play around with fate, as it were, making some of the faces the same color or all of the faces different, adding and removing things behind the colored buttons to influence where the die might fall and add further elements of surprise.

The Bilibo Game Box gives your child a set of almost infinitely enticing properties and relationships to explore. Without even reading anything even closely approximating rules, the child will find herself using the die in some way to indicate which mini-Bilibo she should aim for. Aim what, you might ask. Any of those color-coded, button-like discs which can be slid or juggled or tossed or tiddled under or over or through. Or strung together, for that matter, or strung together with a mini-Bilibo.

As children continue to explore the properties and relationships of the Bilibo Game Box, they will inevitably discover that the elements can be used in conjunction with a surprisingly varied array of other objects in their environment - chairs and steps, tables, counter-tops, floors. They can make targets and game boards with sheets of paper, ramps and obstacles out of paper plates and sheets of cardboard, die-launchers and Bilibo-flippers out of spoons and rulers.

Alex Hochstrasser, designer of the Bilibo Game Box and associated products, has created a work of playful genius. The simplicity of the components belie the elegance of design and the depth of understanding of the nature of creative play.

There are several delightful videos on Youtube that illustrate a few of the plethora of possibilities contained in the Bilibo Game Box, and a well-illustrated booklet that accompanies each Game Box for yet more ideas, and, soon, even more will be on the Bilibo website.

Despite all these resources, please, consider this: the more you and your children play together with this, openly, inventing games from scratch, without any guidance other than that which comes from your collectively playful hearts, the greater the value of your experiences with this remarkable toy. If you want ideas, let your children be your guide. The Bilibo Game Box is remarkably innovative and brilliantly designed, but the real value of it only becomes apparent when it is used as a tool for playful, inspired invention.

Labels: Kids Games, Tops for 2009, Toys

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Quixo

Quixo Classic is well-made, well-conceived strategic game for 2 or 4 players, which, because it is related to tic-tac-toe, is easy enough for a 6-year-old to play, and, because of its use of the mechanics of sliding block puzzles, is subtle enough to challenge a 66-year-old. Well, 67, actually, but who's counting?

The game consists of 25, 1-inch wooden cubes, bevel edged, lovingly smoothed, warmly wooden cubes, which are packed in a cloth bag, and nestle comfortably in a wooden tray. Four sides of the cubes are left blank. You'll find an X pyrographed on one of the other sides, and, opposite that, similarly pyrographed, an O.

At the beginning of the game, all the cubes are placed on the board, on to any of their 4 blank sides, forming a 5x5 array. Only the cubes on the periphery are available for play.

The object of the game is to be the first player or team to get 5 of your symbols (an X or an 0) in a straight line. To do this, you pick any blank block on the edge of the board, remove it, and then slide the row or column of blocks so as to create a new blank space on one of the edges of the board. You then place the block you selected into that space, positioning it so that your symbol is showing.

The game continues in that manner, players or teams alternating turns, until someone gets 5 of their symbols in the proverbial row. Because each move results in moving part or all of a row or column, blocks are getting continually repositioned - and within there lies the rub, as well as the tickle. You have to see much further ahead, consider a copious complexity of cubic combinations in order to get your symbols (and not your opponent's) to line up in the appropriate array of your aspirations.

Designed by Thierry Chapeau, Quixo Classic is one in a series of similarly well-made games by the French game publisher Gigamic, available in the US from our much-appreciated Fundex. Easy to learn, as fun for kids as adults, well-made, played in 15 minutes or less, often surprising - as they all-too-rarely say amongst Major Fun Game Tasters, this one's a Keeper!

Labels: Family Games, Keeper, Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Monday, July 20, 2009

Quoridor Kid - as fun as it looks

Whatever you can say about Mirko Marchesi's Quoridor, you can also say about Mirko Marchesi's Quoridor Kid.

Except that Quoridor Kid is cuter. And takes less time to play. And the board is 7x7 instead of 9x9. And there are 16 instead of 20 fences.

They play the same. They offer the same exercise in strategic maze-making. One is cute and short. The other is larger, darker, more brooding, more adult. But no matter which you are playing, Quoridor or the Kid, as child or adult, it's the same fun and fascination.

Which is rather remarkable, come to think of it, that a kid's version of an adult game should prove as maturely playworthy as the adult version. Which makes this version a special gift to parents. Because here's a game in a version that will appeal to your child as it will to to you. Your child will be especially sensitive to the fun of it - to the fantasy, the remarkably skillful humor of the mouse-in-maze metaphor - and consequently, they might laugh more often than you will.

It is a challenging game. You begin on the edges of a 7x7 grid. You, as a mouse whose nose is the same color as a piece of wooden cheese placed on the opposite side of the board. You take turns moving your mouse, horizontally or vertically, one space at a time. Your goal and purpose, as in much of life, is to get to your cheese first. You do that by moving forward, or by placing fences between your opponent and her cheese. Moving and fencing, the board begins to look like a maze, and the strategic depth is equally amazing.

All that metaphorically-appropriate mouse-and-cheese cuteness aside, getting to your cheese first is something you can take seriously, beyond metaphor. And as a parent, it is a special thrill when, as you inevitably will, you lose a game to your own child - fair and square. You won't have to say things like "well, then, you're the second winner," or make just the mistake that will "accidentally" give your child the victory. Because playing Quoridor, Kid or not, can get as challenging to the grown-up as it can to the child - and still look fun!

Which is what makes the Fun of Quoridor Kid so Major. What else would you call kind of fun can you get from a game that requires deep, logical thinking, that looks and plays as inviting to adults as it is to kids, as it is to kids without adults?

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Gobblet Gobblers - cute and challenging

Do not be misled by cuteness or the obvious similarity to tic tac toe, Gobblet Gobblers is an abstract game worthy of serious strategic contemplation.

No, it's not chess. It's not even checkers. But it's not like any tic tac toe game you've ever played, unless you've already played the Major FUN Award-winning Gobblet Jr.

Repackaged and revisioned, Gobblet Gobblers plays the same as Gobblet Jr., but introduces a new level of whimsy and fantasy that invites children to view the often serious challenge of abstract reasoning with a light and playful heart.

Players build the board out of four, brightly colored wood pieces. Using these pieces, instead of a solid board, gives the game a friendlier feeling - integrating the game a bit more with its environment (kitchen table, play table, carpet, floor). The pieces all have little felt feather-like things sticking out of their "heads," adding to the whimsy and offering a practical and compelling way to lift and move the pieces from place to place. There are two different color pieces - blue and orange (oddly, but probably not coincidentally reprising the name of the publisher). Both players get six pieces - two sets of three nesting cylinders.

The game plays like tic tac toe (the object being to get three of your color pieces in a horizontal, vertical or diagonal row), but, unlike the traditional game, in Gobblet Gobblers you can move your pieces once they are placed, and, if your piece is larger than another, you can temporarily "gobble" it by placing your piece on top. Being able to move pieces is departure enough to make Gobblet Gobblers something more than your paper-and-pencil version of tic tac toe. But being able to cover a smaller piece takes the game to a new level of strategic complexity - new enough for it to become a unique invitation to abstract thinking - unique enough to invite serious attention from adults as well as children. And there's that added component of having to remember what gets covered. And the subsequent, sometimes delightfully agonizing experience of losing the game because of what lies beneath.

Designed by Thierry Denoual, who designed all of the current Gobblet variations, Gobblet Gobbler, with its humorous design (and lower price), is Major FUN, at least - especially for kids who have already mastered the traditional versions of tic tac toe, and even more especially for their parents.

Labels: Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Thursday, June 18, 2009

Stixx

Stixx is a strategy game. It's lovely to look at. Easy to understand. And yet, surprisingly subtle.

There are six different colors of Stixx (the game pieces). There are seven of each. To set up the game, players place the Stixx randomly (trying to keep the colors as far apart as possible) in the 42 grooves around the board. There's an extra Stixx. It's gray. It's used as a marker, replacing the Stixx that has just been collected, and indicating which Stixx are now collectable (those that are adjacent to either point of the marker).

Before the game begins, each player draws from a collection of six "hidden color tokens." This identifies the color of the Stixx the players are trying to collect. The object is to collect more of your Stixx than anybody has been able to collect of theirs.

There are many levels contemplation-worthy strategic complexities. Whenever you pick up a Stixx you determine which Stixx the next player can select from. If you're ahead, and you can isolate the grey Stixx so it's not touching any pieces, the game is over, and you win. If you try to collect too many Stixx of your color, your opponents will be able to guess what color you're trying to collect, and either keep you from collecting more, or take those colored Stixx themselves, just for spite.

Having to keep your goal secret while trying keep others from achieving theirs is an aspect of the game that adds greatly to the depth and humor of it all. If it gets too much for you, you can guess someone's color - forcing them to reveal it to everyone and, if you're correct, winning you two extra moves. If the possibility of taking those two extra moves becomes strategically attractive to you, and no one has yet guessed your color, you can reveal your secret color.

 Stixx is easy enough to understand, and has a short enough playing-time, to meet the attention span of your average, gifted seven-year-old. It's also deep and intriguing enough to engage the serious-minded adult. And it often makes you laugh. Which is another way of saying Stixx is Major FUN.

Designed by Odet L' Homer and published by Goliath Games, Stixx can be played by two to six players, and, as good as it is, it seems to be just as good (if not better) when more than two want to play. Stixx is nicely packaged, very easy to store. It has a lot of colorful, irreplaceable plastic parts - 49 of them. But rest easy, wise Stixx-owner, Goliath will replace your losses for free.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Chicken Cha Cha Cha

Chicken Cha Cha Cha is kids' game that is even more fun as a family game and at least as fun at a grown-up games party.

Short-term memory is an important aspect of this game. Which is part of what makes it such a good family game. Considering whose memory is shorter term, it's very likely that they'll have at least as good a chance at winning as you.

The real fun of the game, however, comes from chasing each other around a board of thick, cardboard, egg-shape tiles. There are four wooden chickens (two are supposed to be roosters, but that's where the game begins to get abstract). Each of these chickens have appropriately located places where one can put tail feathers - wooden sticks topped by egg-shaped balls, each corresponding to a chicken color.

Then there are the thick, cardboard, octagonal tiles which are placed face-down, and surrounded by the egg track. The images on these tiles correspond to images on the eggs.

You place your wooden chicken with its one wooden tail feather anywhere on the egg track. When it's your turn, you first have to find the octagonal tile that matches the egg tile in front of your chicken. If you are correct, you move your chicken to that tile, and go again, trying to guess which octagon matches the egg tile that is now in front of you. You can play in teams, even - which makes it more fun, and more likely that your collective recollection might be good enough to find which octagon matches which egg tile.

If you get immediately behind someone else's chicken, and it's still your turn, you can, if you can identify the octagon tile that matches the egg tile that is in front of the opponent's chicken, jump over that chicken, and get his or her proverbial tail feather.

The first chicken with all four tail feathers wins.

Chicken chasing is great fun. It's as fun as playing tag or duck-duck-goose. And, as the game progresses, you remember (especially if you're young enough) more and more of the octagonal tiles, so you can run (or, as the game designers would want you to think of it, "cha cha") further and further. So the chase speeds up. And the tension increases. And sometimes you get so excited you forget where anything is. And sometimes you remember everything. And then you win.

Designed by Klaus Zoch, and graced by the endearing art of Doris Matthäus, Chicken Cha Cha Cha is a remarkably versatile, and engaging game, for a surprisingly wide range of ages. It's one of a relatively few games that kids can play as well as their parents can, that appeals to teens as much as pre-schoolers, that could find as much welcome in a games party for grown-ups as with the kids in the family room on a rainy afternoon.

Because the game is so elegant (there are really very rules) and so easily learned, it is also easily varied. If the game is too hard for some players, you can turn all the tiles over periodically for review. If it takes too long, you can have the chickens cha cha in opposite directions so they encounter each other more frequently. Since you make the board, you can always make it smaller, eliminating some eggs and their corresponding octagons as needed. You can even, if you're playing with people of my memory strengths, you might also consider increasing the number of guesses a player can make when octagon-hunting.

Chicken Cha Cha Cha - available in the US from Rio Grande Games. Not complex. Not profound. Most definitely Major FUN.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games

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Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Gulo Golo

First of all, just saying "Gulo Gulo" is fun. Especially if you're a kid. In addition, there are the six little, kid-appealing, bear-like playing pieces. And the funny illustrations on the 23 thick, octagonal tiles you use to make the board. And the 22 colorful (five colors) wooden eggs with the wooden bowl you put the eggs into and the wacky "alarm pole" that you stick into the egg pile. And the velvet drawstring for eggs and bowl storage. All in all, everything looking like fun.

Then there's getting the game ready, which is also kind of fun. There's no board. Instead, you make a track out of all those lovely octagons (first you have to find the Gulo Junior tile, and set it aside). This is also kind of fun because there are at least four different edges you can use in connecting the octagons. And you put them face down, which makes you wonder what color they'll be when you turn them over. And just before you finish the track, you take the last four tiles, add the Gulo Junior tile, shuffle them, and place them face down as the last space on the track leading up to the wooden bowl nest. And either now or sometime before, you also put all the eggs into the nest, and stick the alarm pole deep into the eggs so it's as close to standing straight up as you can make it (this itself is challenging, and especially fun in retrospect).

Then there's the game. You start at one end of the track (the stack of 5 track pieces and the nest are at the other end). You turn over the first tile. That tile has a color. You "steal" the egg of the same color from the nest. Did you set off the egg alarm (make the pole fall)? No? Good. Now you can move your Gulo on to that tile. The next player can either steal an egg of the same color, or turn over the next tile, and try to steal the egg of that color. As the game continues, the players who are still closest to the start have the most choices - since they can move to any tile that has already been turned over and is the same color as the tile they are already on. Some of the eggs are smaller. They are harder to remove (especially for those of us who are fat-of-finger). Some of the eggs are larger. They are easier to remove, but also are more likely to cause the pole to fall. The player who reaches the last tile without triggering the egg alarm draws tiles from the tile pile. If she draws any tile but the Gulo Junior, she has to remove another egg. If she manages to free the Gulo Junior, she has to steal the purple egg. And if she manages to do that, without, and the alarm pole is still in the nest, she wins.

Recall the observation about the fat-of-finger. Compare the finger width of a 5-year-old to that of a 30-year-old. That explains why Gulo Gulo is such an excellent family game - it is one of the few children's games in which adults are actually at a disadvantage - just enough of a disadvantage to make playing with a 5-year-old a meaningful challenge.

Brought to the US by Rio Grande Games, Gulo Gulo was designed by Hans Raggan, Jürgen P. Grunau and Wolfgang Kramer (with noteworthy art by Victor Boden). Gulo Gulo has lasting play value, especially for families with children between the ages of 3 and 7. The design keeps everyone involved. Because of the increasing number of tiles that get exposed during the game, players who are behind have a good chance to leap forward, while players who are furthest ahead and set off the egg alarm have to move all the way back to the nearest tile of the same color. The game is easy enough to learn, at least to start. And the rest of the rules become clearer as the game progresses. And if not, don't worry. The mechanics of the game are fun enough and strong enough to keep the game fun, even if you don't use all of the rules. And if the game still proves too challenging, there's a set of easier rules for younger children. And for those adults who are terminally thick of finger, consider asking your kids for help.

Labels: Dexterity, Family Games, Kids Games

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Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Crazy Old Fish War is crazy fun in an old fish war kind of way

You know those card games kids play, like Crazy Eights, and Old Maid and Go Fish and War? Remember how much fun they were? And how they kind of stopped being so much fun after a while, and you kind of stopped playing them? So, let me ask you, do you think you might find those games fun again if you combined all of them, yes, all of them together into one?

So let me tell you about a new card game from Hasbro, called, oddly enough - and I do mean oddly, Crazy Old Fish War. You get this special deck of cards - 58 of them. They all look, well, fishy. You get your funny goldfishy-looking cards which are one color, and your funny blowfish-looking cards which are all another color, and your funny sawfish which are yet another color, and your kind of almost scary lantern fish-like looking, yet other-colored cards, and your crazy octopus-looking cards which all the same color and, appropriately octopus-like, are "8"s. Most of them (55) are numbered. Three are not numbered at all. They are mermaids. Not old mermaids. But, nonetheless, maids, of the mer-variety.

You deal seven cards out to everybody (up to six players) and put the rest face-down in a pile. Then you turn over the top card, and the next player, Crazy Eight-style, plays a card that matches either the color or the number of the card just played. And so forth and so on, until a player doesn't have a match, at which time that player may play the eight-tentacled Crazy Octopus card, which looks and is wild, and can, also Octopus-like, be any color. Or the player can choose to Go Fishing, hoping to find a match in someone else's hand, or the player can declare a War against any other War-like player. Should that other player have a higher card, or an Old Mermaid, she wins the war. If need is dire enough, and it's your turn to lead, and you don't have a match, and you don't want to declare a War or Go Fishing, you can play an Old Mermaid, who, as we know, is also wild, but who makes the player have to pick up five more cards.

All of which results in a new, yet hauntingly familiar game, that oft-times leads kids who are old enough to have grown bored with War to engage in long, friendly bouts of rule clarification, and more oft-times into longer bouts of laughter.

Labels: Kids Games

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Monday, June 08, 2009

Tylz engages your spatial, perceptual and strategic skills - and it's fun, too

Tylz, as a passerby noted, looks like some kind of Scrabble® game played with colors instead of letters. There are racks to hold your tiles and a large, lovely, unfolding board, with special double-scoring squares marked with stars, even.

But, my friends, Scrabble it is most definitely not. You could compare it to dominoes, if your dominoes had colors instead of numbers, and were made of three instead of two squares, and were all L-shaped.

It turns out that Tylz is a unique board game combining strategic, perceptual and spatial skills with a welcome balance of fun-inducing luck. One to four players (yes, there is a solitaire version) score points by laying down tiles whose edges match in color to at least one of a growing configuration of tiles, or to a space on the board. The more edges matched, the more points you get. And, if you match more three or more edges, you get an extra turn.

Tylz pieces are magnetic, and adhere lovingly to the large board. The game comes with 80 tiles, no two of which are alike. Well, they are all the same shape (an "L" made of three contiguous squares), but every tile has a unique combination of colored squares. This makes you want to consider the strategic implications of each of the three tiles on your rack. Should you play your all blue (or black or red or yellow or green) piece or hold on to it? Should you throw all your tiles back into the pot, and replenish your hand with three new, and hopefully more playable tiles?

And then there are those profoundly moving moments when you approach something close to an ecstasy of scoring - matching three edges, picking a new tiles, getting another turn, matching three more, picking another new tiles, getting another turn, and, what, matching four?!

Designed by Andy and Elliot Daniel and published by their own company, Enginuity Games, Tylz is Major FUN - fascinating, flexible, adaptable. The rules are brief and easy to learn. There are rules for a shorter game, rules for a more challenging game - and suggestions for modifying them so that younger and older players can all be fairly and fully engaged. And there's even a solitaire version.

The colors are so vivid, the shapes so interesting, the board so large and attractively magnetic that the game can be enjoyed by children as young as 5 and adults who are even older than I am.

Labels: Family Games, Keeper, Kids Games, Puzzles, Thinking Games

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Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Qwirkle Cubes - an elegant game of strategic roll-playing

Setting aside the fact that Qwirkle (the tile version) has won the Major Fun Keeper Award, and resisting any attempt to compare Mindware's Qwirkle (the tile version) to Mindware's Qwirkle Cubes (the dice version), let us proceed as if there were no precedent, and treat Qwirkle Cubes for the unique game it really is. O, sure, we could compare. We could even contrast. But we shall set these temptations aside, for the nonce, at least.

Qwirkle Cubes comes in a Qwirkle Cubes box that is cleverly cube-like. Open the cleverly cube-like box and you find a sturdy cloth drawstring bag, under which are packaged 90 wooden cubes. You release the cubes from their plastic wrappedness, allowing them to cascade onto the table and make a pleasingly muted woodish sound. You fondle them, because they, in their lovingly polished one-inch, wooden, dice-like way, almost beg you to do so. You roll them, observing how each die has a different shape on each face, all of the same color. And, further, how there are six different colors of dice. And then you place all 90 of these smoothly finished colorful cubes into the bag, as instructed.

You are now ready to play. So you, and another, or perhaps 2 or 3 others, take turns extracting 6 dice from the bag. You place those dice in front of you. Perhaps you give them one more roll, just to celebrate the randomness of it all. And so the game begins.

You all look at your dice. Do you notice perhaps a pattern? Are some of your dice of the same color, and each of those dice showing a different shape? Are more of your dice all showing the same shape, and each a different color? Whoever has the longest of either of the aforementioned goes first.

From then on, you take turns, adding to the grid in crossword-fashion, gathering points for the number of dice you place, and for any adjacent rows or columns of dice you add your dice to, garnering yet 6 more points should you complete a row or column of same-color, different shape symbols. One might be tempted to compare it to something a game of rummy played Scrabble®-fashion. Ah, so simple, so easy to learn, and yet, so rife with strategic significance and tactical titillation.

Before you take your turn, you may, if you so desire, re-roll any or all of your dice. And herein lies the wrinkle of conceptual delight that, dare we compare, is new, even to those who play Qwirkle (the tile game). You see, everyone can see what everyone has. Unlike that other Qwirkle game to which we are not referring, there is nothing hidden. But that very openness is thought-provoking, to say the least. Now that you can see the other players' hands, you have everso much more to analyze. And, in being able to re-roll your dice, you find yourself with the yet further thought-provoking opportunity to see what fate has so far hidden from you. A decision to make. A risk to take. True, you can do nothing about the color of the symbols. But equally true, with the re-rolling option, you might be able to change the shape. So you ponder, and roll, and combine, and add to the ever-unfolding matrix (which is conveniently less table-top-consuming than the matrix that ever-unfolds when playing Qwirkle (the tile game).

The more you play, the deeper your appreciation for the strategic implications of playing with dice, and the clearer it becomes to you that Qwirkle Cubes (the dice game) really can't be compared to Qwirkle (the tile game), even though the colors and shapes and rules for matching and the designer (Susan McKinley Ross) are the same. If you already own one, you will probably want the other, not because it's better or more portable or cuter, but because it's unique, and it's uniquely fun. The symmetry of both versions (6 colors, 6 shapes), the visual, conceptual puzzles they both present make both games endlessly fascinating. The dice really make a difference. And so do the tiles. If you own neither, you should consider buying either. Or both. For kids (probably at least 8 years old). For adults. For families. Maybe 10 minutes to learn. Maybe 30 minutes to play. Fun that makes you think. Fun that even, from time to time, makes you laugh. Fun, most satisfyingly Major FUN.

In fact, we find the FUN so Major that we have come to play more for the glory than the score. Just making some spectacular play, using all the dice on one turn, completing a row and adding on to two or even three more all at the same time - is so wonderfully satisfying that winning, dare I say it, seems almost besides the point.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Thursday, May 28, 2009

Captain Clueless - navigate your way to fun

Gather enough people so you can have 2 teams - at least 4, maybe 8. Kids, parents, friends, whoever feels like playing something that's a little like a team version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey, and maybe a little more like a team version of the Major FUN-award-winning Par Out Golf.

Let Team Two start for a change. They select one player. That player picks a Port Card, looks for where that port is on the board - a humorously drawn of a navigator's map of the Caribbean - checks one last time where it is relative to his team's home port, and then puts his blindfold on. Somebody from her team puts a marker in her hand, puts the point of the marker on the home port, while somebody else from the other team starts the 45 second timer, announcing the beginning of the turn with the proverbial "bon voyage." Her team can give her only one-word clues, how many clues depending on the destination number. The first port of call can get up to 5 clues, each subsequent port, one clue less, and the final voyage back to the home port has to be made with only 2 clues. According to the rules, if you are "able to draw a clear route and land your marker in the anchor icon of your chosen port of call, remove your blindfold and marvel at your achievement."

Designed by Ted Cheatham and published by Gamewright Games, Captain Clueless turns out to be Major FUN - for kids (as young as 8), for families (younger kids can do the drawing while the rest of the family helps with the directions), with anybody in a playful, party-like mood. You can easily change some of the rules to keep everyone in play - increasing the number of clue words per turn, opting to play without the timer, allowing only nautical-like clues (hard a-port!). Though it's possible to play the game with just two players, the teamplay aspect of the experience is what really distinguishes this game from anything you've ever played before. It's not Pin the Tail on the Donkey. You're not trying to succeed all by yourself. The other players aren't trying to confuse you or make things harder for you. You're being supported by your team. You're the Captain, and though you might be "clueless" you are most definitely not "crewless."

The board is large and fun to look at. It is finished so that it is very easy to erase. The markers are full-size, and, since you're not allowed to have any part of your body touch the board while you're sailing, help to keep the right distance from the board. The sailing fantasy reinforces the "adventure" feel of the game, conveying the tone as well as concept, adding humor, clarity, and an invitation to practice, or make up your own sailing jargon. It's very easy to learn, the rules are very clearly written (on one, thoughtfully laminated page), and it most definitely makes people laugh.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Party Games

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Kayak Chaos - play your cards, shoot the rapids, grow the river, watch out for boulders and whirlpools and cunning competitors

You're racing your kayak down-river. Maybe up-river. Well, not really a kayak. More like a brightly-colored wooden playing piece that looks a little like an iron with a knob in the middle. On the other hand, it's enough kayak-like to give you that kayak-racing feeling. And it's not actually a river, you know, but a brightly colored, pleasantly thick, nicely textured piece of cardboard showing something like a rocky river bottom divided into 5 different-colored lanes. One of 8 pleasantly thick river pieces, now that we're counting. Some of them have boulders in some of the lanes. Others have rapids. Rapids good. Boulders bad.

And then there's a deck of 54 action cards - also nicely textured, but sufficiently shufflable and dealable and hand-holdable. And, as advertised, it's in these very action cards where the action takes place - cards that let you move forward or sideways or reposition the river cards, even. Each of up to 4 players is dealt a hand of 5 action cards. On your turn, you get to play as many as 3 cards. Having this choice accounts for much of the fun, significantly enhancing the strategic depth of the game.

The cards are clearly illustrated and color-coded. There are single and double "paddle" cards that allow you to go forward or backwards one or two spaces. There are single and double "swerve" cards which allow you to swerve into an adjacent lane - one or two spaces, in either direction. "Weather Shift" cards allow you to shift any river card so that one lane becomes unplayable (preferably the lane your opponents are on). "Kayak Tipping" cards allow you to rotate a river card. "Whirlpool" cards let you exchange the positions of any two adjacent river cards. And Life Ring cards can prevent another player from playing any of the cards that affect the river cards.

The strategic value of each type of cards encourages players to think hard about what to play and what to keep for another turn. The choice between moving your kayak closer to the goal, or changing the course of the river to keep your opponents from reaching theirs, adds greatly to the tension and the fun of the game.

The name of the game is Kayak Chaos, but the game is only somewhat chaotic. Just chaotic enough to give you hope that you may actually win, but strategically deep enough to make you feel that you can overcome whatever obstacles the river, your opponents, and plain dumb luck send your way.

Designed by SDR Games and published by Simply Fun, Kayak Chaos turns out to be an original and compelling little game. Because of the different kinds of Action Cards and the nature of the river, it takes a little longer to learn (maybe 15 minutes), but it's a game just short enough (maybe 20 minutes) for even your short-attention-spanning computer-playing kids to want to play again and again. With just enough balance between luck and skill to engage kids over 8, and their families, Kayak Chaos proves to be absorbing, glee-evoking, and, from time-to-time, Major FUN.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games

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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Letter Roll® - a word game for just about everybody

It's a word game. It's a party game. It's a family game. It's even a kid's game. It's Letter Roll® - easy to learn, short, intense rounds (lasting one or two minutes each); easily adapted to different skill levels and play preferences, taking some of the best elements from some of the best word games (a little bit of Boggle, a little bit of Major FUN Keeper-award-winning PDQ).

Your Letter Roll® box contains seven, hefty, 20-sided (go ahead, count them) dice in three different colors. Two sand-timers (your orange one-minute and your blue two-minute timer), four commodious worksheet pads and four full-sized, sharpened pencils. The different colors of the dice identify the level of difficulty (letter frequency) each die introduces. The two white dice display frequently-used letters, the three blue dice less frequently-used letters, and the two orange dice the infrequently-used, and hence, the most challenging.

When it's your turn to roll, you select any four of the dice. This gives you some control over the level of challenge. Choose only blue and orange dice, and you have an extremely challenging round. Choose only white and blue dice for a refreshingly less challenging round. Just to keep power where it most comfortably belongs, an other player gets to eliminate one of your chosen dice, so that ultimately it's not totally your fault if the round turns out to be too easy or too challenging.

Once the final selection is revealed, the roller announces the letters rolled, and players race to write down as many unique words as they can think of that use all three letters. As long as each word uses all the letters, it doesn't matter what order the letters are in. (Having the roller announce the letters, by the way, is another welcome, controversy-avoiding touch - as determining which face of the 20-sided dice are actually showing can prove somewhat of a challenge.) Players race to write as many words as they can think of, knowing that at the end of the round they will only score for words that no other player has chosen. When the time is mercifully up, players take turns reading their lists while the rest of the players draw lines through any of the words on their list that get called out. This results in much, somewhat good-natured, but clearly mournful moaning as scoring potential gets graphically reduced. When all lists have been read, players announce and record their scores, getting one point for each unique word remaining on their lists. This encourages originality, cleverness and obscurity, all comfortably confused by a strong element of pure chance.

To further refine the intensity of the game, players can select either timer, the one- or two-minute sand timer, to be used during the duration of the game. The one-minute timer not only shortens the playing time, it also makes the search somewhat less excruciating. The less time you have to think, the easier it is for you to forgive your lexicographic lapses.

Designed by Tushar Gheewala, the challenge presented by Letter Roll is so wonderfully flexible that it can be played by kids as young as 7 or 8 (just reduce the number of dice) or by adults in the prime of their linguistic abilities (increase the number of dice, increase the number of letters required for each word). By allowing each player to determine which dice to be used, players can further refine the challenge as each round of the game is played. It's a great 2-player game, and, with only slight modification of the rules, you can have as many as 20 players happily engaged (team play takes the game to an hilarity-inducing level of collaboration and chaos). As with just about every game published by Out of the Box, the components are designed for years of play, the box for easy storage, the rules for clarity and durability.

Let those good times roll again. Letter Roll® is Major FUN.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Party Games, Word Games

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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Go Nuts - press your luck, go ahead, go nuts!

Go Nuts is one more example of how much fun can be packed into a 12 Minute Game.

It's a dice game for 2-4 players. There are nine dice. Four of them, the Dogs and Houses dice, are distributed, one to each player. These dice have images of a house on five sides, and of a dog on the remaining side. We'll learn more about these dice later. The other five dice have three Squirrel sides, two Acorn sides, and one Car side.

On their turn, players roll all five dice. They get one point for every Acorn they roll. Then, if they wish, they can roll again. More Acorns, more points. Any of the dice that are rolled to their Car side are put aside. But the rest of the dice (squirrels and acorns) remain in play.

Towards the end of your turn, you may be rolling as few as one or two dice, because all the other dice have become Cars. This makes it increasingly likely that you will roll all Squirrels. At this time, you, well, Go Nuts. That is you shout "Go Nuts," lose all your accumulated points, but keep on rolling and rolling your remaining dice, scoring new points. While you're happily rolling and accumulating, the other players are all hastily and with great focus rolling their Dog and Houses die. Which requires a lot of hasty and focused rolls as, if you remember, only one side of the dice has a Dog on it. As soon as they roll a Dog, they stop rolling. When the last player rolls a Dog, you, too, have to stop rolling. You then take your total score (except for all the points you lost before you started to Go Nuts), and thus endeth your turn.

Needless to say, Going Nuts is in itself a moment of intense, and one might even be tempted to say, Major FUN, keeping everyone somewhat frantically, and most definitely hilariliously involved, no matter who's turn it is. Though it will especially appeal to kids, it's clearly worthy of serious adult consideration.

One more rule of note. If you have only one die left, and you roll an Acorn, you pick up all your dice, roll again and again (as often as you dare), and continue to accumulate points. On the other hand, if you have only one die left, and you roll a Car, you lose all your points, everything, entirely, the same way you'd lose them if you rolled a squirrel, only instead of getting to Go Nuts, you just stop going.

The rules of Go Nuts beckon you to roll just one more time, just in case. Gamers call this kind of game press your luck. I call it the kind of game that makes you, to coin a phrase, go nuts!

Designed by Brian Spence, Garrett J. Donner, and Michael S. Steer, Go Nuts is one more example of how much fun can be packed into a 12 Minute Game. It is one in a series of 12 Minute Games, as is a game called Thing-a-ma-Bots, which, as it happens, I happened to design. Though I can not claim to be entirely bias-free in this review, having Go Nuts and Thing-a-ma-Bots in the same game family is an honor for me, and a service to all playkind.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games

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Monday, May 18, 2009

Trapdoor Checkers adds new levels of strategic fun to a familiar game

Trapdoor Checkers is a new board for an old board game.

Flanking both sides of the board are controls for 4 different slides. Each slide opens or closes one of two trap doors (as the name of the game implies). Which slide you can use, and when, is determined by spinning one of two cylinders embedded on either end the board. When spun, the cylinders offer their players one of three options: slide either a green or orange lever to its next position, or move a checker. When the lever is moved to the left, a trap door is opened; to the center, the door is closed; and to the right, another trap door is opened. On your move, can only slide the lever to the next position.

Each time a trap door is opened or closed, the board is redefined. Though it seems most satisfying to open a trap door underneath one of your opponent's pieces (a rather delicious moment, I must say), it is at least equally satisfying to open a trap door so that when your opponent makes the obligatory jump, she jumps over your piece into the pit of vindication. Every open trap door adds an almost palpable sense of peril. Almost, but not really perilous. Just fun. From time-to-time, the kind of fun that makes you laugh. Often, Major FUN.

To get a better idea of the game, watch this marketing video (originally for game vendors) showing how the game is played.

Designed by David Mair, Trapdoor Checkers proves to be easy to learn, especially if you already know how to play checkers. It brings checker-players a welcome opportunity to re-examine their basic understanding of checker strategies. It adds elements of surprise and unpredictability, combined with a certain, highly graphic opportunity for vengeance, that create new levels of fun and engagement, and necessitate the development of new strategies. Almost any variation of checkers can be played on the Trap Door Checkers board (for more variations, see my article Ex Checkers). For anyone old enough to appreciate checkers, Trap Door Checkers is a reason to appreciate checkers even more.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Thursday, May 07, 2009

Marrakech

Marrakech, some say, is a deeply strategic contest between 2-4 players, in which carpet-sellers demonstrate their cunning by claiming territory, and, with some Monopoly-like glee, collecting vast quantities of their opponents' Dirhams. Others, however, will feel equally justified in saying that Marrakech is ultimately a game of luck, where success or failure is determined by the will of Allah and the toss of the proverbial die. In truth, it is the blend of luck and strategy that makes Marrakech such an attractive game, and extends its range of appeal from kids to adults to the entire family (the youngest being older than 6).

The board (Rug Market Square) is a 7x7 matrix. Each player has a collection of carpets (rectangular pieces of fabric that cover two squares), and wooden coins equal to 30 Dirhams. When the game begins, Assam the market owner (the one large wooden playing piece) is placed in the center of the board. The first player positions Assam in the direction she wants Assam to move, and then throws the large, wooden die, which will cause Assam to move in the direction he is facing from 1-4 spaces. When Assam has finished moving, the player lays a carpet down at Assam's feet (vertically or horizontally adjacent to Assam's position in the Rug Market Square). And yes, carpets can be laid on top of other player's carpets.

The game continues this way, players taking turns, positioning Assam, throwing the die, and laying down carpet. If Assam ends his turn standing on another player's rug, that player gets paid one Dirham for every square covered by connecting carpets. When all carpets are laid, the player with the most squares covered, and the most Dirhams collected, wins the game.

Our Tasters (teens, ranging in age from 12-17) couldn't stop playing the game. The older players were determined to figure out how much of one's success one could attribute to fate, and how much to one's carpet-laying cunning. The younger were equally determined to walk away with the vastest riches, regardless of whether their superior fortune was a result of luck or skill. Despite all the other games they could have played, and my urging them to at least try something else, they played Marrakesh for the entire two hours of our 90-minute Tasting. They strategized. They contemplated. They advised. They chortled. And they played again.

The rules are easy enough to learn in 15 minutes. The game simple enough for people to play intelligently almost immediately after they learn the rules. The rule book is written in 9 languages, and illustrated clearly enough to answer any questions.

Designed by Dominique Ehrhard, Marrakech is available in the United States through Fundex Games, Marrakech proved most clearly to be Major FUN.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Pounce

Pounce is about reaction time and perception and perceptiveness, with a wee bit of strategy and a lot of funny fun. There are five kinds of room cards, and five sets of cat cards. Each set of cat cards contains one cat that kind of matches each one of the rooms shown in the room cards. Kind of - because the cat cards don't look exactly like the rooms - they match in color, but they show the rooms from the cats' perspective. So, the room card that has the bird in a cage matches the cat card that has the bird's eye view of the cat. And the room card that has the gold fish bowl matches the fish-eye view. And the room card that shows the bubble bath matches the bubble-covered cat. So just a tad of extra thinking is necessary for successful match-making. Just the right tad.

Players (there are enough cards for 5 players) all pick a cat card from their hand, place it face down on the table, and, when everyone is finished, all, simultaneously yell "pounce", turn their cat card over, and put their paws on the room that matches their chosen cat. The first player to successfully identify the correct room gets that room card.

There's also one card showing Bruno the Dog. The player who holds that card (a different player gets it each round) can, once all cat cards are placed, put Bruno on any room, taking that room out of play for that round. Once a room card is won, it is placed, face-up in front of the winning player. The first to collect four of the same room card, or four different room cards, wins.

Designed by Roberto Fraga for Gamewright, this simple game is surprisingly deep for a kids' game. Easy to learn. Fun to play. But to win, you have to do a lot of second-guessing - basing your strategies on what room cards each player has already collected and which cards are easiest for that player to reach. This second-guessing strategy is especially true for the holder of the Bruno card, but at every play it definitely helps to try for the room card that the other players are least likely to go after. Speed, however, generally trumps strategy. Nevertheless, the older the children are who play the game, the more likely they are to play strategically. The presence of this modicum of strategic depth keeps the game interesting and eminently playworthy.

The art by Dave Clegg is the perfect complement to the game play, adding whimsy and reinforcing the fantasy, cleverly cartoonish without being too childish. Major FUN.

Labels: Kids Games

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Friday, April 24, 2009

Ninja vs Ninja

There are two ways to take a good concept for a strategic game and turn it into a game that actually makes people laugh: add a little luck, and a little more fantasy. Ninja vs Ninja is a near perfect example of those principles in action.

The design is saturated with fantasy. The pieces are the embodiment of sword-carrying Ninja-like silliness (they look very much like the picture on the box). There are six black Ninjas, six red Ninjas, two Ninja Masters and two Shadow Ninjas. The areas in which the pieces are first placed are called "dōjō"s. Once a Ninja enters the neutral area separating the dōjōs it is said to be on a "mission." It must penetrate the enemy dōjō and then return in order to win honor (a point) for its master.

The inscrutable forces of fortune are represented by two, 4-sided dice. The dice look like bricks that have been magically skewered, the long-way, by a Ninja sword.

The Master and Shadow Ninjas are above the fray, used, as most masters are used, only to keep score. The Shadow Ninjas track the potential score. The Master Ninjas the actual.

The idea of Potential Score is in itself somewhat mystical. The further a Ninja penetrates into the enemy dōjō, the higher its potential score. However, no score can be granted until that Ninja safely returns to its own dōjō.

In the spirit of Ninjahood, though a Ninja can in fact eliminate another Ninja, no points are scored for Ninja killing. Only those who penetrate the depths of the enemy dōjō and return unscathed earn honor for their master. Unless, of course, all the opposing Ninjas are eliminated. In which case, after the requisite moment of insincere grieving, significant victory is granted to the living, whilst ceremonies of in-your-face glee ensue.

The game has genuine strategic depth. After a throw, you can move any one Ninja in a straight or L-shaped line the number of spaces indicated by the total of the dice. Deciding which Ninja to move along which path in which shaped line, deciding whether to eliminate an opponent's Ninja (o, so tempting, and yet, o, so unscoring), or to move one of your Ninjas further into the enemy dōjō or to race back cross neutral territory to gain whatever points you can - these are all significant, contemplation-worthy complexities.

The two-player game takes perhaps 15 minutes to learn and 15-30 minutes to play (depending on how strategic the players want to get). Kids who are old enough to play checkers and play Ninja will appreciate every aspect of the game, and ofttimes resort to speaking in odd accents and exchanging Ninja-like wisdom. Designed by Tushar Gheewala and published by the frequently Major Fun award-winning Out of the Box, if you're a Ninja-loving, light-hearted strategic game player, Ninja vs Ninja will prove most genuinely Major FUN.

Labels: Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Sunday, April 19, 2009

PDQ earns KEEPER award

Every now and a Major Fun game proves to be the kind of game we want to keep in our permanent collection - something exemplary. PDQ is one of those games. Originally reviewed here, PDQ has proven itself to be just that kind of game: fun, flexible, easy to learn and teach, one of those games you just wouldn't want to be without. Here is the review again:

PDQ is a sweet little word game - easy to learn, quick (Pretty Darn Quick) as a matter of fact - a game you can play by yourself or with maybe one, or several or even many other people?

You get a deck of 78 letter cards - nice looking, good stock, big, easy-to-read letter cards. You deal out three at a time, face-up. And then you see who can make a word first, or, in case of a tie, who can come up with a longer word. TLP, for example. Tulip. Sure. Or perhaps Platitude. Platitude. Of course. Longer than Tulip. (Did I mention that you can use the letters backwards or forwards?) (Did I also mention that you can use any number of letters before, between or after the three letters that you draw?) (And, of course, the letters have to be in the same order?)

Designed by Jay Thompson to be played by kids as well as adults (kids use just two cards at a time, word game experts can try playing with four), PDQ is pretty darn close to everything you would want in a word game - 5-30 minutes of engaging, challenging, and frequently laugh-producing fun.

Labels: Family Games, Keeper, Kids Games, Party Games, Thinking Games, Top for 2007, Word Games

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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Turtlemania

Turtlemania is a physical embodiment of the very popular solitaire version of a Mahjong game which is not Mahjong at all, but a game played with Mahjong tiles.

It's a beautifully made game, using 136 colorfully embossed black plastic tiles that are pure pleasure to touch and click together and shuffle around on the table top. The tiles are packed in two layers in a special tray. This is then housed in a tight-fitting plastic sleeve. Turn the tray over, place it on the table, and carefully slide the tray out of the plastic sleeve, and you wind-up with something very much like a computer Mahjong array.

The manufacturers suggest that kids as young as 6 can play this game. We've found that though younger kids may be conceptually able to do so, the amount of control and dexterity required to set the game up and play with the wonderfully slippery, thick plastic tiles makes the game much more appropriate for kids older than 10. For these kids, it is wonderfully appropriate. Since they've played the game on the computer, they immediately understand how the game is played.

It is almost a purely visual game, the object being to find pairs of exactly matching shapes. Note the word "exactly" - for therein lies much of the excitement of this puzzle. Some of the tiles are subtly different from each other. Careful observation is required. Additional care must be taken to observe which tiles are available for play.

The physical set turns out to be actually more fun than its computer cousin. The feel, the ease of seeing the layout, the appeal of having all those tiles to play with. And playing with two or more people (as opposed to by yourself) is still more fun. Major, oddly enough, FUN.

Labels: Kids Games

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Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Catch the Match

Catch the Match, one in the series of Bright Idea games from Playroom Entertainment - a series we have already determined to be Major Fun Award-worthy.

After several years of playing this game with kids, exploring variations (try it with three cards, no, four at the same time), it is with significant satisfaction that we add a Keeper award to it's award-worthy status.

It is an elegant little game - easy to understand, and somewhat magical (I understand there's a mathematical explanation for why it works) in that no matter which combination of cards you select, there's always something that matches. So the game can go on and on, or stop whenever you want. You can play it as competitively or as cooperatively as you want. Timed or not. With two or maybe even eight players. There are only 15 large cards on thick card stock. And even if you lose a few, it still is fun. Something close to the ideal in what we should expect from a well-designed children's game.

Labels: Keeper, Kids Games

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Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Sorry Sliders

Sorry Sliders is what might happen if Parker Brothers hired a game designer who had a profound appreciation for how kids play, a deep understanding of the tongue-and-cheekily joys of the Sorry game franchise, and an equal amount of appreciation for games like shuffleboard and Crokinole.

Craig Van Ness is that designer, and Parker Bros. Sorry Sliders is, as one would expect, Major FUN.

The game comes with a lot of parts, and a similar lot of rules. But it turns out that the parts are relatively easy to assemble, and the rules similarly relatively easy to understand. Both require a certain amount of care, and young children (the game is recommended for kids 6 and up) would definitely benefit from adult partnership.

There are 4 shuffleboard-like tracks and plastic reflector rails that need to be installed. The tracks can be joined to each other, and ultimately joined to a target board. There are two target boards, each has two sides, each side offers a different variation. Each of 4 players gets a set of 4 special pawns that slide on a ball-bearing.

Each player also gets a scoring board and 4 scoring pawns.

Players take turns sliding (pushing, flicking, or otherwise propelling) their sliding pawns down their track towards the goal. After everyone has played, score is kept by moving scoring pawns on the scoring board. Once a scoring pawn reaches Home (by exact count), it is safe. Until then, if the sliding pawn goes into a Sorry Zone in one of the corners of the target board, everybody gets to say "sorry" while the player moves her scoring pawn back to start.

What makes the game of special interest, and of real play value, is that there are so many different ways to play it. Tracks can be joined to each other, they can be placed all around the target square or all in a row. Combine that with the 4 different target boards and you get hours of reasons to play together.

Having a choice of all these different ways to play allows families to customize the game to their own tastes for fun. Exploring the variations, discussing which is the most fun for everyone, result in a valuable opportunity for the whole family to gain a deeper appreciation for and understanding of how they can best play, and live together.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games

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Monday, November 03, 2008

Pictureka

If you are at all familiar with any of the myriad of I Spy games, you could very well leap to the uninformed conclusion that Pictureka is yet another variation of this familiar and most definitely playworthy theme. Fortunately, you'd be at least partially wrong.

With Parker Bros. Pictureka, designer Arne Lauwers has brought us a what might be easily considered a whole new twist, or spin, or flip on the game.

The game comes with 9 boards, three decks of cards, a colored die, a numbered die, and a sand timer. Players begin the game by putting the 9 boards together in a 3x3 array, and the 3 decks of cards somewhere on the side of the boards. Each of the boards is scattered with illustrations many different cartoon figures, positioned in all possible directions.

Each deck of cards is a different color, and each a different kind of game.

If you pick a card from the "Mission" deck, you'll find the name of some object written on the card. You roll the number die. This determines how many of those objects you have to find on the 9-board array. You then turn the timer over and look, really, really hard. If you succeed, you get to keep that card.

The Outbid deck contains more general descriptions of objects ("Things that fly" "Head coverings"). Before you turn a card over, you and your partners bid for how many you think you'll be able to find during the time limit. The highest bidder then turns the card and the timer over, and engages in focused scrutiny, pointing to each object that she thinks meets the description on the card.

The "Find it First" deck contains actual images of things to look for. All players compete to be the first player to find an instance of the pictured object.

On the back of some of the cards you'll find three different kinds of arrows. One arrow directs you to switch any two cards in the array. Another to flip over any card. And the third to rotate any card. These make the challenge just new enough to refresh the interest and excitement of the game.

When playing as a family, it is remarkably easy to tailor the game to meet the abilities of any player, the 6 year old, and, even though the game is not specifically recommended for preschoolers, with a little help from an older sibling or informed parent, using one deck or two or all three, everyone can be included.

For a more immediate feel of the game, you can find a sample online.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games

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Friday, August 29, 2008

Zenn

Zenn is a remarkably fun and inviting dexterity game for 2-4 players. What makes it remarkably inviting is how easy it is to play, even if you never read the rules. What makes it remarkably fun is how many different games there are to play.

Here are a few things you might want to notice: each corner of the playing field is at a 45-degree angle. This makes it possible for a player to achieve some remarkably impressive bank shots. Directly in front of each goal are two reflecting blocks. They are positioned just where you'd want them if you were trying to bank your chip off the corner into the cup. The space between these blocks is only slightly wider than a small poker chip. Thus, sliding a chip from one side of the board so that it passes between the two blocks on the opposite side (and into the goal cup) requires concentration and coordination that is, well, Zen-like. Then there are the various lines and numbers and letters - each of which lends itself to the formulation of yet further and more profound challenges.

Then of course there are the poker chips. Four each, of two different sizes and colors, inviting yet further possibilities of game-like engagement.

You might also notice that the instruction booklet that comes with your Zenn set describes exactly 101 different games you can play.

In sum, the game of Zenn is an invitation to chip-flicking at it's finest! Each different game described in the booklet takes advantage of some different aspect of the board and pieces. Each is an inspiration to invent your own.

This is what makes Zenn Major FUN - the elegance and subtlety of the design, the almost intuitive clarity of the goals, the many, many different ways to play; and the sheer delight of the game mechanics.

Yes, the rule booklet has a certain homemade look, and the poker chip pucks seem a little, well, common, but the game is anything but common, and the many different variations are positively inspirational, and the chip-pucks, available almost anywhere, slide and bounce ever so satisfyingly around the lifetime-guaranteed board (with added slipperiness provided by your readily available can of Pledge spray wax)(and a bag of replacement chips available for a nominal $1.75).

For kids, families, parties - like I said, Major FUN.

Labels: Dexterity, Family Games, Funnest for 2008, Keeper, Kids Games, Party Games

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Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Tastes Like Chicken

Tastes Like Chicken is a new family card game from Patch Products. It's especially good for a family with a strong sense of humor and a propensity for shared silliness.

The large deck of 58 cards comes in a plastic case looking very much lke a ketchup bottle (I guess to make it taste better). Most of the cards are illustrated with hybrid critters, composed of two different animals: half cow, half snake, for example, or half snake, half shark, for another example. A cow/snake can be paired with any a cow/anything or a snake/anything. Which makes for what one might think of as the significant part of the cognitive challenge. But that only partially explains the fun of the game.

See, whenever you put a card down, you have to name the card, like, for example, "Cow-Snake." Out loud, of course. If you don't have a match, you have say "Tastes Like (whatever)" before you draw another card. The (whatever) being something sufficiently distasteful - the more agreeably distasteful you make it, the more fun. Then there are the special cards, like part-chickens, which, eponymously, not only tastes like chicken, but also make the next player draw a card and lose a turn. Then there are the part-pig-tasting cards and the wild rooster card, each of which adds yet another tasty wrinkle to this often hilarious game.

Easy to learn. Not in any way to be taken seriously. Different enough to be a welcome addition to your collection of playful pastimes. Perfect for family fun.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games

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Thursday, July 03, 2008

Rules Rule

Blue Orange makes many beautiful games, beautifully made, beautiful to play. Specifically, recently, a game called Fundomino and another, Double Shutter. Both are available in last-forever plastic housed in life-long tins, as well as in an impressive selection of all-woody embodiments. And both are fun - uniquely, ingeniously, play-again-worthy fun.

Both are based on games of time-tested appeal. Fundomino is based on on Blue Orange's very successful Bendomio, which, in turn, is based on the even more successful and much older game of Dominoes. Double Shutter is based on a game known variously as Shut the Box, Tric Trac, Canoga, Batten Down the Hatches, or Card Sharks. But it's just different enough, because it adds, well, a whole new level, as it were, of things to flip.

If you don't quite understand what I mean by "things to flip" you'll understand why I decided, clearly, most reluctantly, not to give these games their rightful Major FUN due. It's the rules, see, of both games. See, if you don't know the games they are based on, the rules turn out to be just a little too subtle, which, in turn, turns out to be a little too frustrating. Like, for example, figuring out that you keep on rolling the dice, on your turn, over and over, until you can't roll them any more. And then it's the next player's turn. Simple, something everyone should know. O, it's in the rules, if you look hard enough, and you are ready for a radical change in assumptions. The same when you're playing Fundomino. Fun. Really. Until you try to figure out what connects to a Yellow Plus, for example.

But the games, in every way, are Major FUN. Really. And if you can't quite figure out the rules, you can make up your own. It's easy enough. And there's enough play value in the bended-dominoes-with-UNO-like-wild-tiles, or in the beautifully-crafted dice-box with two rows to, uh, shut.

Major FUN-wise, though, seal-givingly, if only the rules were just a tiny bit more obvious, written, illustrated a bit more directly for the casual American family gamer, the seal would be on both games, complete with the all the endorsement thereby implied.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games

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Thursday, June 12, 2008

ZenBenders

ZenBenders is a sliding-block puzzle, of the infamous 15 Puzzle ilk, with a twist, which is to say, a flip.

Each of the 4 puzzles in the ZenBenders series consists of 8 blocks that can be slid around inside of a 3x3 matrix. What makes the puzzles unique is that you can also flip the blocks over, so that a different face is revealed. After you play around with the puzzle for a while, you begin to discover that you can not only flip the blocks, but, by moving a block so that it is either vertically or horizontally adjacent to the empty square, you can actually reorient the blocks, almost as if you twisted them, hence the twist, as well as the flip.

The puzzles are designed to be played almost anywhere. They come in a compact-like case. The top of the case is a transparent lid. The bottom of the case twists off to reveal a collection of 36 different challenges, with three different levels of difficulty. There's even a slit in the case so it can hold and display your chosen challenge card, affording you something close to complete puzzle portability.

As you play these puzzles, you begin to appreciate the uniqueness of the concept (the intricacies of the slide as well as the flip with the conceptual twist) as well as the added perceptual challenges posed by each of the 4 different designs. This is reason enough to buy at least 2 of the series. If not all 4. Another reason for getting more than one is the extra game play potential of racing each other to the solution.

These puzzles are as fun as they can be frustrating (that's why there are different levels of challenge). It takes only a few minutes to learn how to work the puzzle. Most of the puzzles can be solved fairly quickly (the people at Out-of-the-Box claim that they can be solved in 2 minutes. This, however, was not our experience. But this also was where much of the fun came in. The puzzles can get really, really challenging. For adults as well as kids. Hence, the Major FUN Family Award.

Designed by Ariel Laden, ZenBenders is recommended for kids who are 8 and older. It is well-conceived, well-executed, and, well, to coin a phrase, Major FUN.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Rock!

We are always looking for games that can be learned very quickly, that take maybe a few minutes per round, and that are fun enough to play several many times with several many people. Rock! is exactly that kind of game. A card game. For two players. Based on Rock/Scissors/Paper.

It's not really Rock/Scissors/Paper. Actually, almost not at all. Players divide the deck between them, and then, in a War-like fashion, they simultaneously reveal the card that is on top of their pile. The winner is not necessarily the person who has the winning symbol. It's the first person to name the winning symbol. So what you get is this unexpectedly challenging game, where you have to think very fast in deed. First, you have to decide which symbol is the winning one. Then you have to remember that it doesn't matter whose card "actually" won - what matters is that you are the first to name it. Then, just to add to the mental agony of it all, there are 4 different cards for each symbol. Paper, for example, can either be the card showing an inbox filled with an enormous stack of paper, or a paper airplane, or paper swan or a string of paper dolls.

Designed by Anita James, Rock! is a great kids' game - perfect for starting or ending a rainy afternoon, easy enough to learn to get both players almost immediately involved, short enough to play almost any time - before or after dinner, right after homework, just before snack, maybe even instead of watching TV! Yes, of course, parents can play too. And I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that you've figured out a way to play with three people, or that you've come up with some variation that makes the game as interesting for adults as it is engaging for kids. Because it's that kind of game - elegantly simple, significantly fun.

Labels: Kids Games

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Sunday, June 08, 2008

Par Out Golf

We used to play a game called something like Paper Golf. I was a kid then, so that makes it a folk game, at least. It was a great little game - you draw something that looks like a golf hole. You take your pencil and try to get from tee to hole in the fewest number of strokes. If you hit something (a tree, a rock) or go into a sand or water trap, you lose strokes or have to start your next shot from that point. And that's pretty much it. Except you have to do it with your eyes closed!

It was such a good game that, ever since I first played it, I wondered why someone hadn't come out with a commercial version, one that takes the game as seriously as it deserves. I am happy to inform you that someone has. And it's called "Par Out Golf." And it's, as I might have imagined, most definitely Major FUN.

Par Out Golf is played on a set of spiral bound, laminated pages. Special "wet-erase" markers are used so the line is easy to draw, won't smudge, and very easy to erase. The rules are very, very close to the game of golf, complete with sand and water traps, obstacles and slopes. So close is it to "real" golf, you can play each of five classic variations of golf: stroke play, match play, tombstone play, and pro play.

Of the several skills you practice while playing Par Out Golf, a fascinating, and, to any golf player, significant challenge is learning how to visualize your shot. The more observant you are, the more capable you are at remembering the lay of the land, the more effectively you can imagine the exact amount of drive to put on the ball, the better you'll do. This, of course, is the essence of Par Out Golf. Like "real" golf, Par Out Golf challenges both mind and body. If you want to know more about the physical and cognitive aspects of the game, take a look at the thoughtfully included essay: Par Out Science 101.

If you want, you can practice on the Driving Range (on another page) or use the 19th hole (on yet another page) to design your own. You can add your own obstacles, changing the difficulty of each hole, essentially making the game something you can play for-just-about-ever.

Par Out Golf is recommended for 1 to 4 players (it comes with four different wet-erase markers). If you must try before you buy, you can download the first three holes here.

Labels: Dexterity, Family Games, Kids Games

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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Triagonal

Triagonal will remind you a paper-and-pencil game you played when you were a kid. Maybe you called it "Dots and Boxes." You'll probably be at least somewhat enlighten-upped to discover that there are several fascinating variations like, for example, a game that combines Dots and Boxes with chess. All of which demonstrates that the strategic delight of our childhood memories has the capacity to delight us even whilst we revel in the throes of our grown-uphood.

But enough about Dots and Boxes. Because today we are talking about Triagonal, a new Dots and Boxes like game, only it's about triangles, and it's played on a molded plastic board with 120 plastic triangles (4 sets of 30, each of a different color), 84 Section Formers (little plastic rectangles that serve as the lines you would use to connect the dots, if there were dots to connect), and, oddly enough, two dice.

Players take turns (unless you're playing the solitaire version), placing Section Formers and hoping to complete a triangle, and claim territory. You can, of course, play the game with no dice at all, much in the manner of how you'd play Dots and Boxes if you had a lovely board upon which to play. There are a couple Triagonal-specific rules which add to the complexity and challenge of the game: you get extra points if you complete a hexagon, and if you complete a large triangle (made of nine of your markers) you win the game right then and there.

But that, you see, is only the beginning. There are 4 more optional ways to play, plus two meta-options (e.g.: play several games, using any of the 5 options, the player with the highest overall score being the winner). And that's just the options on the box. You can download an additional passel of options, for, of course, free (with registration).

Now these are not variations, but actually different ways to play, depending on your mood and on the people you're playing with. Some people need a certain element of luck in order to have fun - so you play the options that use one or both of the dice. So you have an already interesting game, with the added interest of a collection of options that allow you to add or reduce the elements of luck and complexity. (For more about the social and psychological implications of being able to change elements of complexity, see this).

There are many game designers who include alternate rules and modifications, but these are usually presented as afterthoughts to the "real" game. Triagonal takes a different approach, giving each different way of playing its place as yet another aspect of the "real game." This makes for a unique playing experience - one, given the alternate rules, that can be shared with anyone older than 4, and that can only be called "Major FUN."

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Go Nuts!

Have you ever seen anyone go crazy when playing a game? Go Nuts!, a new entry in Gamewright's 12-Minute Games series, certainly seems to encourage this in the title alone! The frenzied activities of the game add a level of wackiness and fun not often found in dice games, and the "push-your-luck" aspect will keep players on the edge of their seat for the few minutes this game takes to complete.

On a player's turn, they simply roll five dice that have squirrels, acorns, and cars on their faces. Each acorn a player rolls scores the player one point, while cars are placed out of play. Players are allowed to re-roll all dice with squirrels and/or nuts on them; but they can stop at any time, taking the sum of points they have accumulated. Continuing to roll presents a level of danger. Because if the player ever rolls all cars at one time, their turn ends immediately; and any points gained that turn are lost. If the player rolls all squirrels, pandemonium breaks out. The player shouts, "Go Nuts!", and starts rolling the dice as fast as they can, attempting to score as many points as they gather. All the other players roll one special die that has a dog picture on a single face. When another player rolls a dog, they scream out "Woof, woof, woof!" and the player whose turn it is tallies up their points and passes the dice to the next player.

To add an even spicier element to the game, a player who has only a single die remaining gets all five dice back if they roll an acorn. Since the chance of causing a "nutty" round or losing all the dice because of cars is high, players have to assess the risks of doing this, although it may allow a player to come back into the competition.

Whenever "Go Nuts!" is shouted, it's hilarious to watch everyone rolling dice as fast as they can, trying to stop the player from gaining any more points. Rapid-fire dice rolling is amazingly fun; and when added to the simple probability choices, it gives the game a most definitely Major FUN feeling. I've seen groups of people literally shrieking in fun as they tossed the dice at the table, trying desperately to get a dog before Uncle Bob scores any more points; and no one is ever out of competition until the game ends. Add the fact that the game takes less than 12 minutes to play to the mix, and you have a wonderful choice for families and parties.

Tom Vasel
"Real men play board games"
The Dice Tower

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Party Games

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Monday, May 05, 2008

Boochie

Boochie, by Gamewright Games, is an obvious play and variation on the popular game Bocce. But while Bocce can become an intense affair, especially for adults, Boochie is more of a silly, fun game for the family. Really - can you even say "Boochie" without smiling? Additionally, the Boochie ball itself is not a sphere, but a foam dodecahedron that bounces in odd directions and feels like one of those items that every household should have.

To play the game, each player takes a large plastic ring and beanbag ball of their color, placing a matching scoring device on their wrist. One player tosses the Boochie ball a distance away, and then players take turns throwing their beanbag balls and/or rings towards it. The player who has the closest object scores two points, and the player with the second closest object receives one point. Players also score points for "ringing" another player's bean bag or the Boochie ball itself. Finally, the Boochie ball lists another requirement ("+2 for the players with hoops closest together", "+1 for the object farthest away", etc.) that gives out bonus points. Players mark their points on the dial, which is on their wrist, and begin another round.

But that's where things become deliciously interesting. As players gain points, they suddenly have to toss the ball in strange and unusual ways. One player may be forced to make loud noises as they throw, while another must toss objects backwards, between their legs. This accomplishes two things - it increases the silliness (and therefore, fun) factor of the game, while it allows players who are behind to catch up. The more points a player has; the more difficult their throw is.

And therein lies the joy of the game, as families with a wide range of players can effectively play a fairly competitive game and remain close in competition. Little Johnny may throw his ring in a completely different direction and yet gain a point for being the farthest away. Young Tisha might laugh at Dad, as he has to jump while throwing, which results in hilarious contortions. Boochie is simply a fun, entertaining game that can be played outdoors or in large, open rooms. The fact that any group of four players can play this game designed by Forrest-Pruzan Creative means that it is Major FUN. Boochie Boochie Boochie Boochie. See, I told you it was fun to say!


Tom Vasel
"Real men play board games"
The Dice Tower

Labels: Dexterity, Family Games, Kids Games

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Thursday, April 10, 2008

Rage

It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to Rage. Being the mild-mannered Major you know me so well to be, it might strike you as uncharacteristic of me. But, you see, I'm talking about a game. A game called "Rage." A card game, for as few as 2, or as many as 8 players, all of whom know about trick-taking games. It will remind you, as a matter of fact, of that old trick-taking game, with the unfortunate, but evocative name "Oh Hell.

The Rage deck consists of 110 Cards of 6 suits of color cards each numbered 0-15. There are 14 "special" cards including: 2 Wild Rage cards, 4 Out Rage cards, 4 Change Rage cards, 2 Mad Rage Card. All those cards, and all those special cards might make you think of another card game. Not a trick-taking game at all, but the rather hilarious, and far less serious UNO game. Which makes sense, since the original publishers of UNO were in fact the same people who publish Rage. (In case you asked, Rage is now published by Fundex).

Trick-taking games. You know about those. The reason I am stressing that point is that we had one person in our Tasting who didn't know about trick-taking games, and it made the game less fun for all of us. If you know about trick-taking games, you can learn Rage in a few minutes.

First, there's the deal. The first deal, each player gets 10 cards, the next 9, the next 8, all the way down to the last round, with one card each. So each round is a little shorter, and the tension a little higher.

Then there's the bidding - everyone declares how many tricks she's going to win that round. Not bidding, really, since you're not trying to out bid anyone. More like, well, declaring.

Then there's the play. A card is thrown. You follow suit. If you can't, you throw anything, or throw trump. You know, like a trick-taking game.

Then there are the wild cards. There's Bonus Rage, which gives 5 points to whomever takes the trick. Mad Rage, which takes 5 points away from the she who took the trick. Out Rage, of course, there is no trump for the rest of the round. Change Rage, which lets you change trump to any color. And Wild Rage - allowing you to change the color of the suit being played.

So, no matter how card-countingly astute you are, anyone at any time can change pretty much everything. Which adds just that extra spice of fate-fickleness to make you laugh instead of scream.

Very Major FUN.

Labels: Family Games, Funnest for 2008, Keeper, Kids Games, Party Games

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Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Traverse

Traverse is what you might get if you combine chess and Chinese Checkers - what you might get, that is, if you're something of a relatively brilliant game designer.

Like chess, there are different kinds of pieces, each with its own way of moving. Like Chinese Checkers (which, actually, is itself a variation of a 4-sided game called "Halma"), it's a racing game, the object being to be the first player to get all 8 pieces to the opposite side of the playing board. No capturing, no killing, just moving and jumping and racing to be the first.

Again, like in Chinese Checkers, the flow of the game changes as it progresses. As more pieces are moved towards the center of the board, things get crowded, and the possibilities for making multiple jumps increase. And, as they say, how fun is that? So much fun that players often find themselves so excited by the possibility of a really, significantly multiple jump that they forget that they're supposed to be racing to get their pieces to the other side of the board.

And yet, it's not Chinese Checkers. It's Traverse. And the pieces don't all move the same way. Not at all. One kind of piece can only move orthogonally (the cube-shaped piece), another only diagonally (the diamond shape), another, the triangle-shaped piece, moves diagonally forward, but orthogonally back. And the fourth, the sphere, moves any direction. This means that there's an additional strategic implication to where each piece is placed - relative to the board, relative to other pieces. And if yet further strategic implications are needed, there's the additional wrinkle of how you set up your pieces at the beginning of the game. Since they can be placed in any order (as long as they are on your home row), how you arrange your pieces in the beginning of the game can affect your strategy for the rest. Thus, each time you play, the game takes on a slightly different wrinkle.

Traverse can be played by 2 to 4 players. With 3 players, one player gets less-encumbered access to the goal row, so the other 2 have to cooperate against that player while competing with each other. Each combination leads to a different enough game that you are most definitely going to want to try all 3 possibilities (2, 3 and 4 players).

Despite the strategic complexity of the game, it is easy enough for a 7-year-old to play. The design of the pieces (sphere, cube, diamond and triangle) are of great value in helping the players to remember how each moves.

Educational Insights has recently released its 20th year anniversary edition of Traverse. It's easy to understand why, insofar as it's Major FUN.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games

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Monday, April 07, 2008

Cheeky Monkey

Cheeky Monkey is what they call a "press your luck" game (similar in its pres-your-luckness to perhaps the archetype of all press your luckish games, the most significantly Major FUN Can't Stop, both of which, coincidentally, are published by Face 2 Face Games). It's easy to learn, and can be played with actually equal glee by both children (7 and up) and adults. Hence making it something like an ideal family game, but an equally good children's game and an even more equally recommended party game.

You get a collection of 52 poker-chip-like tokens, 8 "bonus tiles" (made of satisfyingly thick cardboard), and an even more satisfyingly thick cloth, drawstring bag. There are eight different animals depicted on the chips. Some animals are more numerous than others. For example, there are 10 monkeys but only 3 elephants. There is one tile for each animal, and the total number of of each kind of animal is indicated on the corresponding tile. The eight tiles are placed, face up on the table, and the chips placed in the bag.

On your turn, you pick and pick and pick chips from the bag, until you want to stop picking, or you pick an animal that you've already drawn. In the first case, you keep all the chips you drew. In the second, they go back into the bag - that's right, all of them. You are, of course, sorely tempted to keep on picking. Hence, the press-your-luckishness of the game.

When you have finished picking, you stack your chips, in any order you deem strategically beneficial. On your next turn, you add your winnings, again in any order, but you can't change the order of the chips you've already stacked. The relevance of stacking order becomes especially vivid during play, when you discover that if someone picks an animal that is currently on top of your stack, you must relinquish said animal to the aforementioned someone. This is a clearly less than desirable outcome for you, as the player with the most chips at the end of the game wins.

Then there are the monkeys, those cheeky critters, which, upon pickage, can also be swapped with any animal on top of anyone's stack.

As play progresses and stacks heighten, the strategic implications of stack order and animal distribution become ever more vivid. Seeing as there are only 3 elephants, for example, if you know that the other 2 elephants are already stacked, you can just about secure your stack if you place an elephant on top - that is, as long as no one picks a money and decides to employ it in a cheeky manner.

Yet another game by the prolific designer Reiner Knizia, Cheeky Monkey is further evidence of what good game design is all about. Major FUN.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Party Games

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Monday, February 04, 2008

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 Circus 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.

Labels: Kids Games, Toys

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Sunday, December 09, 2007

Chateau Roquefort

Caution, perspective owners of Chateau Roquefort, some assembly is required. Do not attempt to do this by yourself. Why, you ask? Because no one, not even those who buy games just so they can poke things out, can believe how unusually pleasurable it is to everso gently punch the many pieces out of their frame - lovely, thick, two-sided, brightly printed, silk-textured cardboard pieces so well pre-cut that seem to fall out on command. It is an indelible experience of something well-made. Something made for kids and parents and especially people who like to collect things.

And even more especially for parents who like to collect things who also like to play with their kids who also like to collect things.

Chateau Roquefort is another beautifully made, European game from Rio Grand Games. It's a game of strategy and memory. The board remains mostly covered during play. On your turn, you can uncover part of the board, and you just might reveal images of different kinds of cheeses. Also on your turn (you have 4 moves per turn), you can move one of your mice (you have 4 mice) onto the board, or from the entrance to one of the horizontally or vertically adjacent squares, or from a square to yet another similarly horizontal or vertically adjacent square. You can also slide a row or column of squares, perhaps to reveal new kinds of cheeses, perhaps to reveal an empty hole, perhaps to cause one of your opponent's mice (as many as 4 players) to fall into said revealed pit.

It is probably true that children as young as six can play the game. However, they would have to be exceptional - given that there are many, many pieces, the loss of which would pretty much significantly impair the replayability of a unique and expensively beautiful game.

The object of the game is to win cheeses. You win a cheese when two of your mice are on squares revealing the same kind of cheese. There are many different kinds of cheeses. And you can only win one of each.

This is an unusually intriguing play principle - trying to position two of your pieces so that they are both rest on the same kind of cheese. On a unique kind of board (sliding tiles, always only partially revealed). Conceptually, it's probably elegant enough for a six-year-old to understand. But we believe that it is best suited to kids who are old enough to appreciate the beauty of the game, the necessity for taking good care of it, and the complexity of the relationships between all the different kinds of moves you take on one turn. It's probably a little too cute (wonderfully designed little wooden mice) for most boys of that age. But, given all those caveats, for the right players, kids, adults, and especially families, the game is the kind you may very well treasure, for ever.

There are some concerns about storage - given that there are so many pieces, and that the board is actually integrated into the box. You'll find a thorough discussion of the ramifications of all this in this review. Our conclusion: despite all the caveats, the game is Major FUN.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games

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Friday, November 30, 2007

Cowabunga

Cowabunga is card game in the tradition of 99, which is also in the tradition of 98 and 100. In these "adder" games, every time a card is discarded, its value is added to the total value of cards on the deck. Some cards don't count. Some cards can be added or subtracted. And some raise the value to 99. The objective is not to go over 99.

Designer Reinhard Staupe has taken that basic concept, and added, if I may use the term, some novel game play to it - novel enough to make it into a new, and significantly fun game in its very own right.

Cowabunga uses a surfing metaphor. As you play cards you build "waves." As the value of the discard pile increases, the wave gets higher and higher. When the wave value reaches 30, it crests. Each new card now makes the wave decrease in height, until it is lower than 10. And then it once again builds. If you happen to be the one who makes the wave change direction, you get to pick an Obstacle Card. So, OK. So here's the conceptual undertow. These Obstacle Cards have numbers on them. When someone plays a card that makes the wave height reach the number on one of your Obstacle Cards, you get to make that player pick up a Cow Pawn. Which could be a bad thing for that player. Hence, the delight, the agony, the ever-playworthy "screw-you factor." As soon as any player has four Cow pawns (or when the last Obstacle Card is drawn), the game immediately ends and the player with the fewest Cow Pawns wins. Then, if there is a tie for the fewest Cow Pawns, the tied player with the most Obstacle Cards wins the tie-breaker.

About the Cow Pawns - they are what you most definitely would be tempted to call "cute" - little cows in red bathing trunks, each holding surfboard. Since the game is primarily for kids, these little Cow Pawns alone make it covet-worthy.

Everything in this sweet little half-hour card game for 2-5 players works well to build the surfing fantasy - the art, the rules, the cute little Cow Pawns. But please note: it comes in a box that's at least three times wider than you need for the contents. I know, packaging has a strong influence on the marketability of a game. Stores stock games according to shelf-space needed. And Cowabunga is packaged to fit nicely in the board game section, and Playroom Entertainment has done a wonderful job on the art and manufacture of the cards and pieces. We spent at least three minutes looking for the board. But it's a card game, with cows. Which led to some minor disappointment and wonderment, until we started playing the game, and discovered that the fun of it is indeed larger than the box.

Box-size-wise, Dan Rowen, president of Playroom Entertainment, explains: "I understand your point on the bigger box; but, with the 17 pawns and 80 cards it simply didn’t fit in our smaller 'card game box.' Also, having a decent presence on a retailer’s shelf is important to get the best exposure to the product. This has been doing really well for us in Hobby-Game stores, as well as Toy stores, gift shops and even some educational and school supply stores. So, we try to have a product that will cross over into numerous segments of the market."

All in all, considering the size of the fun contained, a good value in any size box.

Labels: Kids Games

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Monday, November 26, 2007

Gumball Rally

Ted Cheatham's Gumball Rally is another excellent card game from Z-Man Games. This one's especially for kids or for adults looking for a "filler game."

It's a race, all right, for up to 8 players. The game takes less than a half-hour to play, and probably less than half of that to learn. The manufacturers recommend it for kids 6 and up. We recommend it for kids who like playing race-type games, and especially for adults who enjoy playing light and quick.

You get 8 different Go Kart cards - that is, large, thick, well-illustrated, cardboard cards depicting different Go Karts. You also get a deck of playing cards - 4 different kinds of playing cards (Race cards - 4 suits, each numbered 1-10; Hazard cards (19 cards, no numbers), 10 point cards, and 8 small Go Kart cards to help you remember which Kart is yours. So there are several sorting moments required. And yet more sorting moments once you separate out all the Hazard cards: giving each player 3 cards, removing the Winner and two Checkpoint cards, shuffling the remaining cards, removing 4 cards and placing them in the box (without looking at the cards), taking 3 cards from the Hazard deck and shuffling them with the Winner card, then 3 more cards from the Hazard deck shuffled with one Winner card, and again - placing these all in a stack to form the bottom of the draw pile. All of which is very clever and logical once you actually play the game, because the Winner and Checkpoint cards, placed as they are near the bottom of the deck, force the game to some oft-delightful and generally timely conclusions. After the first game, all this shuffling and sorting seems to add both to the fun of the game and the fun of getting ready to have fun.

The large Go Kart cards are placed, in order of play, on the table - the first player in the first position, etc. Race cards determine which Go Kart is the fastest. If you play a Race card, and you are in, say, third position, and your card is higher than the Go Kart in the second position, then you move up one position. Then there are the Hazard cards which affect the Go Kart whose color matches the inner border of the Hazard card.

Oddly enough, despite all this apparent complexity, the game takes only about 15 minutes to learn and less than a half-hour to play. The pace is fast enough to keep everyone in play - even when there are 8 players. Which makes the game feel most race-like - especially as cars are constantly changing position, and even more especially when you pass the lead car.

The cards are vividly illustrated by John Donahue under the direction of jim pinto (who artistically spells his name in lower case).

A lot of big fun in this little game.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Party Games

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Wednesday, October 24, 2007

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.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Party Games

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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

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.

Labels: Kids Games

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Friday, October 12, 2007

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.

Labels: Kids Games

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Thursday, October 11, 2007

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.

Labels: Kids Games, Party Games

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Tuesday, October 09, 2007

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.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Tunnelz

Tunnelz is a 3-D, Twixt-like game with the elegance and simplicity of Tic-Tac-Toe. Your objective: make a connected line of your color pieces, stretching from side to side of the cube.

You get 8 blocks. Your opponent, 8 of a different color. You get a plastic cube, a 3-D matrix, 5-rows by 5-columns by 5-tunnelz deep. The blocks are one cell wide and high, and two cells deep. So, in fact, you only need three blocks (well, 2.5) to make a continuous, side-spanning line. Except, of course, you take turns, and your opponent has this annoying need to block you, so to speak, whist pursuing her orthogonally distinct line-making, side-spanning efforts.

The two two-cell depth of the blocks adds yet more interesting properties. Once you put a block into a Tunnel, it stays in that tunnel. If it were one-cell deep as well as wide and high, you could slide the block in any of eight directions, from row to row, column to column, level to level. But it's two. So you can't. So a piece positioned in any particular tunnel, blocks four other tunnelz. Very interesting. Interesting also that you can push a piece deeper into the game cube. You even get a pushing rod for that very purpose. Interesting that when you push your piece, you might very well be pushing another piece in that same tunnel, in such a way as not only to connect some of your blocks, but also to disconnect some of hers.

All in all, Tunnelz is an attractive, inviting, and unique two-player strategy game, simple enough for any tic-tac-toe-playing tot. Intriguing enough to merit more than a modicum of mature contemplation.

Labels: Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Monday, July 02, 2007

Booby Trap

Booby Trap is what you'd call a "classic kids' game." It's been around since the 60's (originally a Parker Brothers game), and has been recently re-released by Fundex. For kids old enough to appreciate the patience, dexterity, observation skills, and luck necessary to win, Booby Trap is a study in fascination.

An assortment 63 pieces (three different discs, each of a different width and color, each with a peg handle in the middle) is literally squeezed in the playing frame so that they are as tightly packed as possible. The squeezing is achieved by attaching a rubber band to a "tension bar" on one side of the frame. The goal of the game, then, becomes to remove as many of the discs as you can without disturbing the tension bar.

The larger pieces are, of course, worth the most points, and are, equally of course, the most difficult to remove. And yet, oddly enough, if you are very observant, or lucky, you might easily pick one that, despite appearances to the contrary, lifts out with the greatest of ease and heart-lightening joy. Of course, after someone's judgment or luck proves to be less than successful, and the bar moves, and other pieces get sprongged off the board, the tension, for the next player, is considerably, so to speak, released.

There is a rule which can be very difficult for younger children to observe - the one about having to move whatever you touch. The desire to test before plucking frequently overwhelms the need to play strictly by the rules. Those who are old enough to appreciate the sagacity of the touch-it-pluck-it rule will derive immense satisfaction, and the sometimes shockingly violent evidence, of the efficacy of their observational powers, and will be moved more quickly to laughter than to tears in either event.

This restored release of Booby Trap also includes a variation which allows for a shorter game. Six narrow boards are included, one for each of the up to six players. Each board shows a different sequence of pieces that must be selected. It's a good challenge, and, depending on what happens before your turn, and what size piece is next on your board, often surprisingly more than adequate.

Labels: Kids Games

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Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Ribbit

Ribbit is a board game in which 2-5 young players (5-10) race to get their frog to the finish line. The next thing you need to know is that it is designed by one of the most prolific, and reliably innovative designers in the industry: Reiner Knizia.

There are 5 wooden frogs, each of a different color. Selecting from a small stack of 5 cards, one for each frog, each player secretly determines which frog she wants to be the winner. There's also a deck of movement cards. These cards determine which frog gets moved how many spaces, forward or back. Some cards apply only to the frog that is furthest behind. These cards help to make sure that all the frogs stay in the race.

Players take 5 cards from the deck of movement cards and decide which card they want to play. If one frog ends its turn on a space (lily pad, of course) that is already occupied, that frog jumps on top of the other frog's back. If a player wants to move that other frog, both frogs get moved. Here again we see an innovative, and strategically significant play principle. If the frog you want to win is on the bottom of a frog pile, every time you try to move closer to the goal (the pond), you move everyone else closer as well.

The fact that players don't really know what frog each player wants to win adds but mystery and an opportunity to be deductively as well as analytically engaged. Younger players may not be canny enough to appreciate this particular subtlety, but older players will find it engaging and suspenseful.

All these factors (secret frogs, frog piles, the "last frog" movement cards) result in a unique play experience for young children - and yet, none of the various innovations are too challenging or difficult for them to learn. A great contribution where great contributions are most needed.

Labels: Kids Games

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Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Sizzletoad

In answer to the question: "what do you get when you combine rock-paper-scissors with tic-tac-toe?" You get Sizzletoad - a board game with a near perfect blend of strategy and chance, one of the few strategic games that kindergarteners could enjoy as much as, say, fourth-graders.

You can play Sizzletoad with 2-4 players. Because the game is based on familiar games, its mechanics can be readily understood, even though it offers a very different play experience. Instead of using fingers to play the game, you use cards. This is also a little different. The cards (24 of them) are divided equally between players. Equally, but randomly, so another element of luck is added to the strategic mix. You might want to play a Paperduck, but you can't if you don't have one in your hand. The rock-scissors-paper part (Sizzletoad-Paperduck-Fossilstick actually) works a bit differently with three players. But it most definitely works.

The tic-tac-toe part is also a little different. The player who wins the Sizzletoad-Paperduck-Fossilstick showdown wins the other players cards, and gets to play any one of those cards on to the tic-tac-toe grid. However, the first player to get three of any card in a row is the winner of that round.

All these differences are just enough to make everything you might know about strategies for playing tic-tac-toe and rock-scissors-paper useful, while you find yourself engaged in a very different, and challenging game.

The cards are small (perfect for a child's hand). There are four, lovely, crystal playing pieces, and a folding board. All-in-all, a unique invitation to play, and think.

Labels: Kids Games

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Monday, June 18, 2007

Dots Amazing!

You need a real artist to take a simple children's puzzle, like Connect-the-Dots, and transform it into something worthy of mature, adult-worthy consideration. A real artist.

And that's just what David Kalvitis is, an artist. And that's just what he's accomplished with his many Dot-to-Dot books.

Let me give you a few examples.

Stars puzzles: You start at number 1, as you would expect, and continue connecting dots in order until you come to a star. Then you have to look for the next number, which could be anywhere else in the puzzle, and continue from that number to the next star. And on and on, number-to-number-to-star. Jumping around from place to place on the puzzle, you really have no idea what you're drawing, sometimes until the very last star.

Arrows: You see this big field of arrows - no dots at all. Just arrows. So there's absolutely no visual hints about what the puzzle is about. You look for a circled arrow and start there, following where it points until you come to another arrow, and you take off in that direction. Of course, if you make a mistake, just one, small, easily explicable error, you soon find youself wandering realms of graphic chaos. Which is why, despite Kalvatis' heartfelt recommendations that all his puzzles be done with a marker, we find ourselves frequently recommending a soft pencil with a very good eraser.

Compass: Here, you get nothing but an array of dots with a few symbols sprinkled in hither and yon. You look for a star and, then read the directions printed above the puzzle. And I do mean directions. Like, from the star, go: N (North(, and then Wx2 (two dots west), and then SWx2, and then on and on and on, and if you do it exactly right, you'll end up at an A. And then, from the A, you start on the next line of instructions....

For an elementary school teacher, the different puzzle types involve skills that are closely tied to the mathematics curriculum. For the rest of us, they are an invitation to return to a deeply satisfying, often remarkably peaceful pastime.

These are but three of the innovative, challenging and inviting variations of connect-the-dots Kalvitis has created for us. And, if you're a social puzzler, it turns out that many of them can be solved cooperatively - especially the big puzzles, or puzzles like the Star puzzles that you solve in segments.

There are five volumes of the "Greatest Dot-to-Dot" series, so far. The first four are a great introduction to the wide variety of puzzle types. The fifth volume is most appropriately called "Super Challenge," where you'll find puzzles that span two pages and hundreds and hundreds of dots. There are also four volumes of Kalvitis' Newspaper Dot-to-Dot puzzles - smaller, but every bit as innovative.

Each puzzle is a work of art in its own right. When you complete a puzzle, you are rewarded with images that are themselves often surprisingly vivid, sometimes rich in detail, sometimes spare and subtle. Often drawn in perspective. Never stiff. Never blocky. Always surprising.

Labels: Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Monday, May 07, 2007

Alfredo's Food Fight

You're probably going to think that Alfred's Food Fight is a perfectly silly game. Which, especially if you happen to be between the ages of let's say 6 and 12, is exactly what's going to make it one of your very favorites.

Chef Alfredo stands on top of a batery-powered, turning spaghetti base. He holds two velco-covered pizza pans, and wears a velcro-covered apron and hat. Players (up to 4) use their spring-action forks to fling spaghetti-yarn-streaming meat balls, hoping to make them stick somewhere on Alfredo's ample velcro coverings.

And that's the game. Simple. Exciting. Silly. Safe (the meatballs are soft enough so that if you accidentally get flung upon it can't hurt), Major FUN - especially for kids. Sure, sure, you can change the rules. You can score extra points, if you want, for sticking on the pizza pans, or something. You can make it easier - get closer to Alfredo - and in the same way, make it more difficult, moving further away. But the real point is: it's silly, it's fun, and, with enough patient fork-flipping, you can get very good at it.

Labels: Kids Games

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Friday, April 27, 2007

Froggy Boogie

Froggy Boogie is a beautifully crafted, all-wood, many-pieced, memory/race game. There are 9 frogs that are set up in the middle of the play area (table, floor, bed - any flat surface). Each frog has places for two eyes. There are two different kinds of eyes (small cylinders that fit into the frogs eye-holes): One kind has an image of a baby frog on the bottom. The other doesn't. When setting the game up, players put one of each kind of eye in each frog. The challenge, which turns out to be significant enough even for adults (or perhaps especially for adults), is to remember, for each of the nine frogs, which eye has what. Wooden lily pads are placed around the cluster of frogs - this becomes the race track. Players begin the game by selecting a playing piece (one of six differently colored "baby frogs"). Two wooden dice are thrown. Each of the "adult frogs" (the ones with the eyes) is painted in two different colors. The throw of the dice determine exactly which adult frog gets chosen. The player then selects one of that frog's eyes. If there's not a baby frog on the bottom of the eye, the player gets to jump to the next lily pad and guess again. If there is, it's the next player's turn.

If memory isn't your forté it's reassuring to know that you can always rely on luck (there's a 50/50 chance you'll be right). If you're a kid, or you're interested in challenging your memory, you'll find the game challenging enough to make you want to take it most seriously.

The game is very attractive, to children as well as adults. It's colorful and funny - all those cross-eyed frogs. Yes, it requires extra care to keep track of the many pieces. But, because children will find the game fun to set up, and as challenging as it is attractive, the extra care required becomes an additional attraction - the game is its own special "collection" of bright wooden treasures.

The game is a race. The first player to get her baby frog back to the big lily, wins. For older kids, this is great fun - an incentive, an opportunity to demonstrate and be rewarded for a superior memory. For kids who have trouble dealing with losing (or winning), it might be necessary to change the rules a bit.

Luckily, the game is interesting enough, and flexible enough, to allow players to adapt it to the way they have the most fun playing. Because there is no board, you can arrange the frogs in any way you want. In fact, you can even rearrange the frogs during the game - making it all that much more challenging, and making the game that much more of an invitation to play for the whole family.

My grandkids happened to have a problem with competition. So, we played with only two baby frogs: the "Happy Frog" and the "Sad Frog." One of us would throw the dice, and then all of us would select the eye. We pooled our collective memory. If we guessed correctly, we'd move the Happy frog to the next lily. If we were wrong, the Sad frog would advance. No one "owned" either of the frogs. We were like gods, cheering for the Happy frog when the Happy frog won. Cheering for the Sad frog when she got to move. Sure, sure, we wanted to Happy frog to win. But, in the end, it turned out that the Sad frog won. Which, of course, made her Happy. And us, too.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games

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Friday, April 06, 2007

Balanko

Balanko is such a straightforward invitation to fun that you almost don't need to read the rules. There's a ball on a string. There's another ball that rides a curved track. There are pits of various score values - the center and widest pit being, naturally, both the easiest to get the ball into and of the lowest value. There are sliding scorekeepers to keep track of your achievements.

One player releases the rolling ball. The other player releases the swinging ball, hoping that the swinging ball will hit the rolling ball into a high scoring pit. The only other thing you might want to know, suggested-rule-wise, is that the ball-roller, sitting on the opposite side of the game, can try to catch the ball-swinger's, uh, ball. Which is actually a good idea, given that if she doesn't catch the swinging ball, and the rolling ball is still rolling, her opponent can try to catch it and again take yet another swing.

If nothing else happens, sooner or later the swinging ball is going to hit the rolling ball anyway. On the other hand, it could make the rolling ball go into either the ball-swinger's or the ball-roller's pit. So, if one player doesn't catch it, the other player might consider it strategically sound to grab for the swinging ball as soon as it's in range.

Setting it up is a bit less straightforward, but the instructions are clear, the steps few, and it is easy enough to do (once you rid yourself of certain expectations about how it "should" go together) that you won't mind having to take it apart and put it back together. Though you'll probably want to keep it assembled and ready to play with for-practically-ever.

We've given Balanko the coveted "Major Fun Family Game Award" because it is the kind of game that will be as much fun for kids as it will be for adults and probably even more fun for kids and adults together. For similar reasons, it's also getting a Party Games award, even though only two people can play it at a time. And, if that's not enough to interest you, you should know that it is being seriously considered a Keeper.

Labels: Dexterity, Family Games, Keeper, Kids Games, Party Games

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Thursday, April 05, 2007

Paddle Pool

Paddle Pool is what they call a "classic." It was first published in 1970 by Milton Bradley - (and, at one time, was apparently also called Battle Ball). And now, thanks to the playful entrepreneurs at Fundex, the children of the world can once again gleefully engage in an elegantly engaging, playfully competitive, intuitively clear game of keeping a ball out of your goal and whacking it into-anyone else's.

Paddle Pool is at its best as a four-player game. You can modify the board for three or two players with special cardboard inserts. In case of lost inserts, you can always assign one or two players to two paddles. The game comes in a deceptively small box. With careful instruction-following, the game assembles into a 20x20 inch playing field. The court is raised in the center so that a ball, placed in the center, could roll into any of the four corners. Which is at least one good way to get the game rolling. A rod-and-paddle is snapped diagonally across each corner of the game. This allows the player to move the paddle to the right or left defend, and to twist the paddle to raise or lower the paddle to whack.

There's place for a small scoring peg in each corner. Pegs are placed in the #5 hole. Every time the ball goes into your goal, you lose a point. The game is over as soon as one player reaches zero. The player with the highest score wins.

It's amazing how absorbing this simple game can be. I tested it out on some junior high school kids in a special education class. The only thing I needed to explain to them was that the player who makes the ball fly off the court loses a point. This was a very useful thing for them to know. It introduced a little finesse, a bit of control, and kept the ball nicely in play. I put the game on the table, and suggested, if there were more than 4 people who wanted to play, they could play the game like Four Square - a new player coming into the game as soon as one player lost. Twenty minutes later they had the game on the floor and were blissfully playing away.

Once the game is assembled, it's pretty much going to stay assembled. It's sturdy enough, and the pieces fit together well-enough. And trying to take it apart and fit it all back into the box is enough to drive you to engineering school.

Labels: Kids Games

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Poppo

Poppo is what you might call "educational" and what you might even consider a "reading" game, and what you more than likely would classify as a "competitive" game for "little kids." In all cases, you'd be absolutely correct, and, simultaneously, wrong.

Remember a game called "Trouble?" My guess is that what you remember best about it is the "Pop-o-matic" thingy in the middle of the board - a transparent capsule housing a die, that you'd press down, let go, and watch it pop the die to a new number. And that's what you remember so well because popping the pop-o-matic was probably the most fun part of playing the game. Well, that's what at the heart of Poppo. Only the die is 8-sided instead of 6. It has letters on it instead of numbers. And there are two sets of 4 different die-poppers, each with a different combination of letters.

In addition to the die-poppers of endless delight, you also get a a box of cards with 100 different 3- or 4-letter words (illustrated), and a one-minute sand timer. A card is drawn, the timer turned, and two players (or teams) race to be the first to get their Poppo-poppers to spell the word on the card. And that's just about it. You can play it as a solitaire, you can play it cooperatively, you can play it with kids from 4 on up. You read me right, 4-years-old and up.

I first "tasted" it with a group of junior high school kids in a special education class. We evolved the "cooperative" approach together, because it was more fun. Some of the kids just wanted to keep popping - even after they managed to pop their Poppo-poppers to one of the letters in the word we were trying to spell. Others were frustrated by the time pressure. Others had trouble figuring out what letters were available in which Popper. (Each Popper has a different selection of letters, but here's also a wild card on every Popper- so, even if you have the wrong Popper, you'll eventually be able to spell the word anyway.) So we played it together, using all the Poppers, trying to see how many words we could spell before the timer ran out.

Aside from the multitude of instructional benefits that so clearly qualify this game for parental purchase, the important thing is that it's something kids will want to play again and again. There may be faster ways to teach reading or spelling or word recognition, but I don't think there's a way that is more fun than playing Poppo.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Word Games

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Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Number Chase

Number Chase is a number-guessing game, involving some serious arithmetic skills (like understanding greater than and less than, odd and even, number range and properties). But you don't have to tell the kids that. The game is so clearly fun, so gently challenging and enticing, that it just doesn't matter to the kids that actual arithmetic skills that are being exercised. Who, besides teachers and parents, cares about all that number comparison and identification and deductive reasoning? The important thing is that the game is actually fun enough to play and play again.

Number Chase is one more Major FUN-award-winning game in Playroom Entertainment's Bright Idea series. Designed by award-winning fun-maker Rienhard Staupe, the game consists of 50 thick cards. I emphasize "thick" because it is a testimony to the wisdom of a good game manufacturer - knowing that cards, in the passion of play, get mangled, creased, and generally yucky. By having the good sense to make the cards thick, we are gifted with a game that will last long enough for the whole family to enjoy.

There are 50 cards, numbered, as one might expect, 1-50. To play the game, the cards are placed on the table, sequentially, in 5 rows of ten. One player (let's call her the "emcee") writes down a "secret number" between, as advertised, 1 and 50 (all right, between 0 and 51, if you insist on literal betweeness). The guessing player or players select any card. If it just happens to be the right number, that player wins the round. If not, the card is turned over. On the other side of the card there's a question about the number the players are trying to guess (e.g. "Is the number less than 42?"). The emcee answers yes or no. Then another number is guessed. Another card turned over. Another question revealed ("Does the number have a "5" in it?"). Etc., etc., until the correct number is finally chosen.

Everybody stays involved in the game, because every answer is relevant, even when it's not your turn. So, everyone is having fun, everyone is thinking, deducing, exercising what he or she knows about number properties. And as the guesses become more and more educated, so do the players.

In other words, if you were trying to help educators understand the nature of a successful learning experience, Number Chase is the very game you'd want them to know about.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Ugly Doll

Ugly Doll is a kids' game, pure and simple. It's about speed and recognition and matching - skills that most adults have left far behind. It's also about Ugly Dolls, stuffed dolls that are simultaneously cuddly and ugly, and are consequently all the rage in toyland. Which makes it even more suitable to kids, and even less interesting to adults. Which, of course, makes it so kidworthy in the first place.

Designed by one of the chief Gamewright architects, Jason Schneider, the game is elegantly simple. The cards (all 70 of them) are placed face-down on the table and smooshed around. (It is suggested that "cards can and should overlap.") The first player (according to the instructions, "the player who most recently took a bath") turns over any card. The next player turns over any other card. And so forth and on until...no, not until a simple match is found, but until three identical cards are turned over.

Oddly enough, it's the threeness of the match-seeking that makes the game so interesting and so successful. It's significantly more difficult, visually and conceptually, to find three of something than two. Significantly. And, because players grab cards as soon as the third match is revealed, and the cards tend to be scattered both willy and nilly about the table, even if you're not fast enough to be first, there is a good chance that you'll be able to grab at least one of the three - much better, chancewise, than if there were only two of a kind.

For 2-6 players, ages 6-12. Not deep, not profound, but Major FUN especially for, like I said, kids.

Labels: Kids Games

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Monday, January 29, 2007

PDQ - a game for all reasons

PDQ is a sweet little word game - easy to learn, quick (Pretty Darn Quick) as a matter of fact - a game you can play by yourself or with maybe one, or several or even many other people?

You get a deck of 78 letter cards - nice looking, good stock, big, easy-to-read letter cards. You deal out three at a time, face-up. And then you see who can make a word first, or, in case of a tie, who can come up with a longer word. TLP, for example. Tulip. Sure. Or perhaps Platitude. Platitude. Of course. Longer than Tulip. (Did I mention that you can use the letters backwards or forwards?) (Did I also mention that you can use any number of letters before, between or after the three letters that you draw?) (And, of course, the letters have to be in the same order?)

Designed by Jay Thompson to be played by kids as well as adults (kids use just two cards at a time, word game experts can try playing with four), PDQ is pretty darn close to everything you would want in a word game - 5-30 minutes of engaging, challenging, and frequently laugh-producing fun.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Party Games, Thinking Games, Top for 2007, Word Games

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Thursday, September 21, 2006

Zeus on the Loose

Zeus on the Loose is quite solidly based on everything that makes the kids' card game 99 fun to play. And, quite like the Major FUN-awarded game Straw, it makes a good game, better.

Zeus on the Loose adds new cards, with new powers, a lot more interaction, and a Zeus statue.

Let me summarize the root game, as it were, according to Pagat, who classifies 99 as an "adding game": "These are...games, in which the values of the cards are added together as they played in a single pile, the object being to avoid taking the total above the target score (98, 99, 100 respecively)."

So, you see, if your card has the power of, for example, reversing the digits (one of my favorites), you can make the card total, which is currently at, for example, 93, become 39, don't you see.

Interesting. Fun, even. But it's the "lot more interaction" that earned Zeus on the Loose it's Major FUN for Kids award. It would have to be. Because the added functionality and the significantly silly images of male and female Greek gods, and even the cool little Zeus statue cannot be compared in fun value to the Stealing Zeus rules.

You see, to win, you must be the Holder of the Zeus. To be the Holder of the Zeus, you must steal it from a player who is currently Zeus-Holder. O, you steal quite openly, there is no deception involved. Merely the experience of complete, if temporary, vindication. And then it gets stolen from you. And you can't win without it. And then you do a "Same Number Sneak" (see the rules), and steal it back. And, well, it's like a whole nother game, as it were. Like 99, sure. And Straw. But a whole new level of fun.

Labels: Kids Games

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Friday, September 15, 2006

Trapture

Trapture is played on a hexagonal board with sets of 12 "Squiggles" - strips of 3 to 6 rectangles, joined at 60-degree angles. There are apparently many ways strips of 3-6 rectangles can be joined at 60-degree angles. Each of the 2 sets has 11 of them.

At the beginning of the game, the board is seeded with 13 purple pegs, each in its assigned position. Players take turns connecting their Squiggles in the grooves between the hexagonal spaces on the board, attempting to surround pegs. Because the Squiggles are so different, anticipating what territory one particular Squiggle will surround can be a sometimes profound challenge, conceptually and perceptually.

In fact, the challenge is often so profound that sometimes the best thing to do is not think about it at all, take any piece, and get on with it. Which is what makes the game often as much a game of luck as logic. Hence the sometimes Majorness of the FUN.

The transparent squiggles are gratifyingly hefty and colorful. You can play the game without even removing it from its cardboard box, which is a good thing, because when the game is over, closing the lid leaves all the pieces set up securely in position.

Labels: Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Monday, August 21, 2006

Blokus Trigon

Blokus Trigon is a hexagonal version of the Major Fun awarded strategy game, Blokus, which you can now play online.

What's the difference between the hexagonal Trigon and the square Blokus? Well, there is an extra piece (22 vs. 21) in Trigon, and the shapes, though similar in variety to pentominoes, are built of triangles as opposed to squares.

But the rules are basically the same. And the play is basically the same. And both games have variations for 1-4 players (yes, solitaire versions, of significantly enticing challenge, I might add).

I can only think of one significant difference - a purely visual one, which, my friend, is more than significant enough. Since so much of playing Blokus depends on the ability to perceive shapes, changing from a square to a triangular unit makes all the difference. Even for a Blokus master, Blokus Trigon is a whole new game.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Match of the Penguins

Match of the Penguins (no, not MARCH, MATCH, get it, MATCH) is a lot more fun than it sounds like. And, for kids who've seen or heard of the movie "March of the Penguins," the game already sounds like fun.

You get: one deck of penguin cards (64) and three penguin pawns (two black, one white). In the penguin deck are, as you would correctly assume, penguins. On careful deck-scrutiny, you will notice that there are penguins that are exactly alike and penguins that have the same color umbrella or sunglasses or shirt or umbrella (yes, these are the Umbrella-Toting, Lei-Wearing penguins of central Penguinia). And some have the same color umbrella AND sunglasses AND even a lei, too. And don't forget the fish pails, either. Because, though all penguins carry fish pails, only a very very few have two fish in their pail.

And as the cards are laid out, one at a time, if you happen to be the first person to see a penguin with a double-fished pail, you knock on the table and win all the laid-out cards. And if you're the first player to notice that there are two penguins that are exactly the same, you don't knock, you grab the white pawn, and get all the laid-out, face-up cards. And if noone else has noticed anything yet and you are the first to observe that there are two penguins with several matching items, you, of course, grab a black penguin pawn. And since there are two, the next person to notice the black penguin pawn grab as another black penguin pawn to also grab.

And, of course, if you're the first to notice two penguins with the same attribute, and the first to name that attribute out loud (saying something similar to, for example, "Umbrella!"), you'd get all the face-up laid-out cards, unless someone notices that there are a couple penguins with several matching attributes and makes a black penguin pawn grab, which would win, of course, unless someone else happens to notice in those same cards two identical penguins and has grabbed the white pawn, which would then clearly win, unless the round is brought to its conclusion by the knock of the double-fished pail.

So, you see, it's not just a matching game. It's a complex matching game, where you have to look not only for matching attributes, but also weigh their value according to different criteria.

When games are advertised as being fun for kids ages 6 and up, "up" usually means 7. Our kids' games tasters were 8-12, and this was the first game they wanted to play, and remained one of their very favorite, most Major Fun ones.

Labels: Kids Games

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Thursday, July 20, 2006

Giza

You get this board, see, with a map showing the location of three pyramids and the Sphinx. And all these easily punch-out-able (I mean, so easily punch-outable that it makes the punch-out ritual itself a delight of great sheerness), thick, cardboard tiles. You each get four. At a time. Some of the tiles aren't so good. Some of the tiles are explosive. Some are worth many more points. Some many less. And you try to build up your entire city, as it were, one card at a time. And perhaps the most shall we say "fascinating" aspect of this game is that, at every turn, you have the choice of of using one of your tiles to do something good for yourself or bad to any of the perhaps 5 other players who also have the choice, on their turn, to use their tiles do something good for themselves, or bad to you. While at the same time, you win just about entirely by the luck of the shall we say "draw?."

It is at least cosmic in its implications, and deeply revelatory of the human condition.

Giza as serious gamers might say, is a "filler." Relatively easy to learn (depending on who's doing the teaching) and fundamentally what one might call a "light-hearted" game. In fact, I'm going to call it that:

"Giza, the light-hearted game of mutual betrayal." - Major Fun, Himself

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games

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Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Speedy Eddy: Beyond Chutes & Ladders

Speedy Eddy is just enough like Chutes and Ladders so that you almost don't have to learn anything at all in order to play it. If you're a kid, and you have trouble with the whole winning and losing thing, you probably shouldn't be playing either game.

On the other hand, if you're a Chutes & Ladders (et. al.) kind of kid, Speedy Eddy is very interesting, in deed. Much more interesting, in fact, than either Chutes or Ladders.

As we have come to expect of games made by Blue Orange, Speedy Eddy is what you might easily call "lovely." Made of wood, intricately illustrated and carefully themed. In this case, we have a game about racing snails, so the board is a snail-likishly spiral race track, the pieces look like snails and shells, even the pips on the big wooden dice look like snails.

But here is the really interesting part, wherein the nigh-unto Major fun is to be found: your snail (your piece) is wearing a shell that is actually anybody's piece. As long as your snail has a shell, it moves the total of both dice. If your shell is blown off (by landing on a space whereupon shell-blowing-off forces abide), you can only use one of the dice to determine how far your actual snail goes. And, with the other die, you can move any shell. Any shell, see.

Very interesting. As game-wrinkles go, this one is subtle and rife with strategic implications. It's also a little difficult to understand, a little frame-braking. Especially for little kids who play games where your piece is your piece and that's all you can do anything about. Especially since at the beginning of the game, each snail starts with a shell of the matching color. A shell, like all shells, delightfully magnetically attached. Making the losing and replacing of shells part of the whole, shall we say, attraction.

Labels: Kids Games

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Tuesday, July 18, 2006

MixUp

Let me tell you about MixUp, the game.

It is a two-player, multi-kibbitzer kind of strategic-like game. If you've ever played or seen a game called "Connect Four," you'll figure out the game more or less immediately, until you begin to realize the implications. Ah, the implications. There's a board with chutes, you could say, and it stands up, and you take turns dropping pieces into any channel, even on top of your opponent's tiles, in a familiarly Connect-Four-like manner.

Oh, your opponent's pieces, which are, actually, just like yours, except from the opponent's perspective they are mere shapes, while perhaps similarly from your perspecitive the tiles are mere colors, depending on who plays what. And you see, yes, of course, you are trying to get four-in-a-row of your what-have-you, but also, with all this color/shape craziness, you can get four-in-a-box. And then you win.

And then you slide all the tiles back into their compartment on the back of the board. And you slide the legs off and use them for the lid. And there you have it. Well-made. Well-played. Yet another fascinatingly Major Fun experience, from designer Maureen Hiron.

Labels: Kids Games, Senior-Worthy, Thinking Games

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Monday, July 17, 2006

Tumblin-Dice

Think of perhaps shuffleboard with dice. Think, for example, of a shuffleboard that is on five levels, with, where there were once pucks to slide, dice to, well, slide perhaps or flick or shove. A shuffleboard looking pretty much exactly like this.

Think further of the role, or roll, of luck - how the dice, even though you try to slide them everso carefully, tend to change faces when they descend a level. There's an intimation of the possibility that one could control all of this, making the die land 6-up even by the time it reaches the X4 level after having knocked all the opponents' dice to off-table oblivion. On the other hand, there's an unavoidable element of luck which makes a 7-year-old often as successful as a 57-year-old. Think of this, and you'll understand, almost immediately, why Tumblin' Dice has received a Major Fun Family Game award.

If you know shuffleboard, you'll know how to play Tumblin' Dice. When I introduced the game at the Tasting, I asked my fellow Tasters to play the game without looking at the rules. With almost no discussion, they played almost exactly the way the designer had intended them to. Because the game was so easy to figure out, it is exceptionally welcome in a variety of settings, especially recreation centers, classrooms and my house.

Speaking of classrooms, the game requires enough arithmetical calculations to make it actually useful in almost any elementary school setting. When a die lands in special scoring sections of the board, the face value of the die is multiplied by a given factor. So, in figuring out a total score players exercise both additional and multiplication, and, one might argue, even algebraic skills.

But don't let its educational implications fool you. Tumblin-Dice is an invitation to minutes or hours of play, for kids, for adults, for the whole darn community. Did I mention adults? The kind of adults who might be interested in playing, um, professionally?

It's made as well as it plays - a big, polished, two-piece all wood, table-worthy game that you might never put away. Ever.

Labels: Dexterity, Family Games, Keeper, Kids Games, Senior-Worthy

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Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Very, Very Big Bubbles

We took this picture during our last Tasting. David and company are on our front lawn, learning to use "beebo Big Bubble Mix" to create what can only be called an XTREME bubble. "Our mission," say the XTREME Bubble Team "is to manufacture and distribute to all people, the most exciting, amazing and revolutionary bubble solution in the history of the world! We believe that if every person in the world had a chance to play with beeboo Big Bubble Mix, the world would become a better place." Yes, beebo Big Bubble Mix, the same beeboo Big Bubble Mix used to blow the " the World's Largest Free Floating Soap Bubble."

There was no question at all about the Major FUNness of the XTREME bubble-making experience. I personally have never seen bubbles so large, so ameoba-like in their blobitude, so surprising in their floaty formations. Not having made an exhaustive comparison, I can not attest to the fact that beebo Big Bubble Mix results in the biggest of all possible bubbles. It worked. It was easy to mix, easy to make work. Learning to use the bubble wand was most definitely an integral part of the whole experience. As a connoisseur of all things fun, I can tell you that this stuff is great fun. And I mean great!

At a purported savings of $6, you're probably going to want to purchase the entire 1 Bottle of beeboo™ Mix & 1 Bubble Wand starter kit. Then, you'll probably have to get the 2 bottles of beeboo™ Big Bubble Mix, unless you find yourself ready for the 4 bottles of beeboo™ Big Bubble Mix

Labels: Kids Games, Toys

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Monday, May 01, 2006

Nerdy Wordy

Nerdy Wordy is a challenging word game for two players, based on the traditional children's paper-and-pencil game of "Word Square." Based, but better.

Each player has a tray and a collection of letter cubes. The letter cubes cover the whole alphabet, and are designed in alphabetic order. Thus, there are cubes with letters A-F, J-L, M-R, S-W, X and Y. There are also two blank (wild) cubes. Players take turns selecting letters. A selected letter can be dropped anywhere within the 5x5 matrix. Thus, though each player is using the same letter, what they end up with on their boards will be different.

Though the two trays make you think of Battleship, Nerdy Wordy is a completely different game. Players get points for each word they make (from 2-5 letters long) and get extra points if they are able to make five-letter words on all 4 sides of the grid. Though the cubes store nicely in their respective trays, it's not really a car game - as you need a surface on which to hold and sort your cubes.

The game can get very challenging. Especially if you count 2- and 3-letter words. And even more especially if you happen to be playing against a Scrabble player. The game can be made easier (scoring only 5- and/or 4-letter words), without disturbing the strategic interest.

The letter cubes, because they limit the letters that can be used, and because of the addition of two blank cubes, add great depth and interest to the game. For two word-loving players of equal skill, age 8 and up, the game will undoubtedly prove to be Major FUN.

Labels: Kids Games, Senior-Worthy, Word Games

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Monday, April 03, 2006

Straw

Straw is a card game for 2-6 players, 8 and older, and it is Major FUN.

Easy to understand, with all the rules you need written on one side of a playing card, and some useful clarifications, that you might also need, on the other.

A close relative of the children's card game 99 (or 98 or even 100), Straw adds both fantasy and depth. As in 99, players take turns adding cards to a pile. Quite literally adding, because as each card is placed on the pile its point value is added to the sum of all the cards in the pile. In Straw, each card adds weight to the load on a camel's back. A light object, like, for example, a backgammon board, only weighs 2. A heavier object, like a bag of bricks, weighs 10. In 99, the goal is not to allow the point count to exceed 99. In Straw, the critical point is reached at 50.

There are a few very significant differences - significant enough to make Straw a unique game - one complex enough to interest adults while remaining clear enough to invite children. The big difference is that, when the camel's back is broken, the remaining players score by adding the value of all 4 cards in their hand. Those wonderfully special, beautifully illustrated cards (e.g.: the card that reverses direction, the flying carpet card that actually remove weight from the camel's back, the Alladin's lamp card that can weigh any number you pick, from 1 to 10) each and all have a score value of zero. So holding on to them for their strategic value only makes your hand worth less.

It doesn't take long before the camel's back gets broken, so rounds are brief, and the possibility that you might actually win the game, even though your score is low, keeps you involved until the last card is played. Mostly luck, there are just enough strategic implications to keep the whole family in play.

The next edition of the game will soon be available. In the mean time, if you hurry, a mere $20 will get a signed and individually numbered first editions, like the works of art they are.

Labels: Kids Games

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Thursday, February 23, 2006

Space Faces

"Space Faces" is what you call a game that includes 120 different (that is correct, different, as in no two alike) alien-like heads, printed, in full color, in six concentric rings on a large game board - a board full of Space Faces.

If you happen to look at the faces, eyes, mouths and noses of the 120 different Space Faces, you just might notice that there are 5 different colors of each. So, if you happen to be looking for, say, a Space Face with a yellow face, blue eyes, purple mouth and red nose, you'll find one, and only one.

Which one you're supposed to find is determined by the "Alien Identification Device" - a plastic saucer with a transparent dome, 5 marbles (each of a different color), and a concave surface for the marbles to roll around on, and 4 holes, one for each facial feature. So, you shake the saucer, and the marbles find their holish destinies. One of the holes is twice as deep as it should be, so that the first marble that falls into it is covered by the second. Thus, 5 different colors (marbles), 4 different attributes (holes). It's such an elegant device, and works so efficiently, and it's so fun to play with, that it, alone, is almost enough to make the game a strong candidate for Major Funhood.

Space Faces is a family game for 2-4 players. The challenge (matching, visual discrimination, speed) is enticing and complex enough to interest an adult, and yet well within the mental capacities of a kindergartener.

So now we do in fact have a game that is Major FUN award-worthy. Easy enough for a 4-year-old to understand, complex enough for an adult to enjoy. This is a major achievement in game design.

The game also includes elaborate, toy-like scorekeeping devices, that actually do make the process of keeping score easier. I, on the other hand, prefer not to keep score. It might have something to do with how embarrassed it might make me to reveal how visually inept I am. On the other hand, the game is so much fun that you don't really have to keep score at all. All the more Major the Fun, I say. Especially when you're playing with kids who don't really understand what winning is for or why you should be happy that you made the game end.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games

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Friday, February 10, 2006

Thing-a-ma-bots®

Gamewright's card game "Thing-a-ma-bots" is a silly game, naturally, because I designed it. (So this is not a review, even though I personally happen to think that the fun to be had is most clearly Major FUN variety.)

Built completely from parts of other games, the parts I Iike best – Thing-a-ma-Bots is a 'junkyard approach' to card game design. A unique, new game, built from a combination of rules from other, older games. A card game designed to challenge everyone equally, kids and adults, based on collections of rules that make people exercise both mental and social abilities. Rules that are often very surprising, and most important to me, rules that make people laugh. Like, for example, that bit from the game Steal the Old Man's Bundle where "If you play a card that matches the top card of an opponent's bundle, you steal their whole of their bundle and add it to the top of yours, placing the matching card that you played on top." Very fun little bit. Makes it impossible to know who's going to win until the very last minute of the game. (more)

Labels: Kids Games

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Thursday, December 08, 2005

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."

Labels: Kids Games

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Monday, September 26, 2005

Sitting Ducks Gallery

Sitting Ducks Gallery - it's like a carnival game. You know, the one where you shoot ducks. Plastic ducks. Floating in a row. Very much like that. Except there's no gun. And the ducks are printed on cards. And they don't move unless you move them yourself. Which, depending on what card you pick, you sometimes get to do. Other than those minor changes, it's really exactly like a shooting at those floating ducks in a carnival game. Except you're shooting at each other's ducks. And they're not exactly floating.

Playroom Entertainment's "Sitting Ducks Gallery" is at least as fun as the "real thing," and a lot funnier. A "quacky card game" by Keith Meyers, Sitting Ducks Gallery features two sets of cards, a set of 6 targets, and a folding board (the gallery). One set of cards (the deck with the yellow back) is full of ducks (six different colors - one for each player) and water (drawings thereof). The other deck (red-backed) is used to target and shoot and move the ducks, and to, well, duck, so to speak. Targeting is separate from shooting, naturally, which adds a definite strategic tang to the tension.

The game (for 3-6 players, ages 10 and older, with 20-30 minutes to devote to something significantly fun) is humorously illustrated and well-made. We loved the look and feel of the cards and were taken by the cleverness of the simulated shooting gallery. Each player selects a duck color. There are six ducks of each color. The remaining ducks are removed from play. There are 41 cards in the Duck Deck. The other 5 cards are water. The Duck Deck (I love saying that) is shuffled, stacked, and placed on the right side of the shooting gallery board. The top six cards from the DD are then placed on the board, one in each space. There are 52 cards in the Action Deck. Actions include things like: shoot and misfire, double barrel (targeting two adjacent ducks), bump left and right (moving the target marker), various cards that allow you to move the ducks, and two defensive cards: "duck and cover" and "bottoms up." Each player draws a hand of 3 cards. As the game progresses (depending on the action cards played), the ducks move off the board and back into the bottom of the deck - very much like the circulating ducks in a shooting gallery.

It's most definitely a competitive game. Basically, you're trying to shoot everyone else's ducks, hoping, in the mean time, to duck everyone else's shots. One of the things we appreciated most about the game was that even if all your ducks get shot, you still get to stay in the game, shooting merrily away at your opponents until only one player has any ducks left.

Despite all the different kinds of Action Cards, game play continues to be elegant, enjoyable, and essentially ducky. It is easy to learn, and remains fun to the very end. Major FUN.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Walk the Dogs

Walk the Dogs is probably one of the most beautiful, most playable, and most original family game (8 and up) on the market. How's that for an enthusiastic review?

The game consists of 63 plastic dogs (colorful, carefully detailed, and highly covetable by anyone older than 3) and a deck of cards. The dogs, as this thoroughly instructional video shows, are arranged in a spiral on the center of the table. The cards are cleverly illustrated to indicate how many dogs a player can take from either the front, the back, or both ends of the spiral. Players then take turns, hoping to collect dogs of the same breed. Collected dogs must be placed in back or front of the player's own doggy line. This complicates things just enough, because in order to win, you have to get five dogs of the same breed in a row.

There are also special cards that, true to the spirit of any good competitive game, can be used to increase your chances of winning, or decrease someone else's. One of my first game design mentors, Julie Cooper of the Ideal Toy Company, used to call this the "screw you factor." At least, that's the gist of what he called it.

At $32.00, the game is pricey, but you get a lot of dogs, and, far more importantly, a lot of play value. The one, uh, bone I had to pick was that the Doggy Bag (cute, huh?), though made of a thickly feltish cloth, is a little too small to hold all the dogs, or be put back in the box when full (slated for change when the current supply is exhausted).

In all likelihood, this is not the only game from this company (SimplyFun) to be getting a coveted Major FUN award. The company itself is uniquely notable, Major FUN-wise. Launched in January, 2005, SimplyFun is "a direct selling party plan company offering games and other entertainment play products... (whose)... products are sold in the comfort of your own home, exclusively through a SimplyFun Independent Consultant." SimplyFascinating.

Labels: Kids Games

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Friday, April 29, 2005

Maask

Maask is a lovely game - easy to learn and understand, easy to play, and, most remarkably, as the game continues, it gets even more interesting.

It's a well-made, wooden game, of the quality we've come to expect from Blue Orange Games. There are 12 wooden pegs that come in 6 different colors. These "jewels" are hidden in 12 wooden cylinders, all of the same color, and placed around a board that looks like a crown. A pair of six-sided dice determine which colors the player is trying to find.

At first, it seems like a simple memory game. If you can remember which color is where, chances are you'll be able to find the colors you roll. Then it gets a little more complex. Once a color is correctly identified, the peg and cylinder become the temporary property of the player who guessed it, who then arranges her prizes in a line in front of her. If you can remember which colors she has where, then you have a better chance of winning when it is your turn, because you can take anyone's "jewels." Of course, this means you have to forget where the colors were originally.

As the game continues, and "jewels" change hands and places, the challenge increases. This goes on until the last jewel is taken from the playing board crown. The rules even encourage the players to help each other, keeping in mind that it is always a strategic decision whom to help and why.

Having two dice to play is an act of compassion on the designer's part, because, with two colors, there's always the chance that you might know where the next one is. If you know where both colors are, you, most deservedly, get another turn.

Maask is a genuine family-worthy game, of interest to anyone who has a memory, fun for anyone who likes to play.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games

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Monday, April 04, 2005

Scoop's Surprises

Every now and then I come across a game so elegant, so simple, so well-designed and made, that I am reminded why I started this whole Major FUN Awards program. Scoop's Surprises is just that kind of game.

Though it will remind you of the "old shell game," it reminds you just enough to make the game easier to learn. Once you start playing, however, you'll rapidly discover that, compared to Scoop's Surprises, the old shell game is mere child's play.

There are four wooden "ice cream cones." Each of these houses three pegs. There are four sets of three different color pegs - vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and mint. The person playing Scoop first moves the cones around, exactly as in the shell game of yore. Depending on the age of the players, Scoop uses three or four (or maybe only two) of the wooden cones, and makes maybe only three or four or maybe five or more switches. Then, and here's where the game gets truly boggling, then Scoop tells you which flavor you have to find.

Having to keep track of not just one, but as many as four different "flavors," the mind basically melts. It can be extremely challenging. Or, with some loving simplification, easy enough for a five-year-old.

Scoop's Surprises is surprisingly easy to learn and even more surprisingly fun to play - for the entire family. Did I tell you Scoop gets to wear a special ice cream hat? And how that hat adds just the right sprinkle of humor to a remarkably well-made, well-conceived, and enduringly entertaining game?

Labels: Family Games, Keeper, Kids Games, Party Games

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Friday, March 11, 2005

Knock-Out

Knock Out is the second game from the Muggins people to get a Major Fun award. Again, it's made for durability and ease of use - a wooden board, marbles, plastic trays for holding the marbles - and elegantly conceived. And yes, like Muggins, the first "educational game" to receive a Major Fun award, it's value, at least for adults, lies in the learning opportunities the game provides. And, even more importantly, it's fun.

Numbers, from 1-18, are spaced clockwise around the board. A hole above and below each number can be filled in by marbles. Throwing three dice, the object is to use the break up the combined number to capture as many of the numbers as possible. A number can only be captured when both holes are occupied by the same color marble. As you play the game, you get a vivid lesson in probability. The lower numbers are always the first to go - and the most hotly contested. It's a remarkable opportunity to be explore the machinery and mystery of math.

Variations allow for more sophisticated play. There's a "Place Value" level in which the dice can be arranged so the first die represents tens, the second units and the third can be added or subtracted from the total, which is then broken down to its components. For example, a 6, 5 and 3 are rolled. The 6 and 5 become 65. The 3 can be added or subtracted to make 62 or 68. 68 can then be broken down to a 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 12, 15 and 17.

Above all, it's fun enough to want to play again and again, especially for elementary school children. Major Fun. For kids.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Thinking Games

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Friday, January 21, 2005

A to Z Jr.

A to Z Jr. is pretty much the same game as the Major FUN Award-winning A to Z. The only significant difference is the category cards. Which turns out to be significant enough to make it Major FUN Award-worthy in its own right.

Though A to Z Jr. uses easier categories, the game is just challenging enough to keep adults interested. Which makes it just about the prefect family game. You take turns rolling a die. The die determines what question you have to answer. The object is to fill your board, from A to Z, with responses to questions like "Things you can buy in a Supermarket." Every correct answer allows you to cover the corresponding letter with a red, transparent chip. As your board gets filled up, the game gets more and more difficult, because there are fewer correct choices. The delicious "vengeance is mine" rule that allows you to remove chips from your opponent's board keeps the game in balance, and adds greatly to the fun and anguish of it all.

Of course, depending on your children's resilience, it might be necessary to adjust the challenge here and there. The fact that it's so easy to make the game easier (or more challenging) is key to its success as a family game. If your child feels that she doesn't know the names of baseball teams or different seafood, she can roll again or choose a different card (perhaps while the timer's still running).

Both games (Junior and non-Junior) have been updated and repackaged. A new electronic timer (2 AAA batteries, not included - tiny Phillips screwdriver needed) graces both games. The 30 second timer ticks away with increasing speed as the time elapses, and a satisfyingly unthreatening male voice lets you know when time's up.

Labels: Keeper, Kids Games

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Monday, January 17, 2005

Chairs

Chairs is probably one of the most challenging and playworthy dexterity games I've encountered. And I've done a lot of encountering!

As you can see from the illustration, the goal is to stack as many chairs as you can. After several hours of play, our highest stack to date is 7. And that's out of 24 chairs!

The directions recommend two different ways to play - in one, you just take turns and lose points when you make the stack fall, in the other, you distribute the chairs equally and then take turns. The second choice proves the more funworthy. If you make the chairs fall, you add them all to your pile. The first player with no chairs wins. This way, you don't have to do any score keeping - your progress (or regress), being self-evident. You can also pre-determine how long you want to play - depending on how many chairs each player has in the beginning of the game.

Of the several fun-provoking features of Chairs, one of the most appreciated was that all chairs are not alike. There are 8 different styles. So far, my expertise has not increased sufficiently for me to tell you the subtle differences between styles and how they influence their stackability. But I can tell you that it makes the set as interesting to a two-year old as to a 63-year old.

I was so delighted to discover a game that has such a broad range of appeal that I found myself driven to create yet another Major Fun award - one specifically for families. I hope that I find many more games for this category. But I have a feeling that no matter how many more games I find, Chairs is going to prove unique.

Labels: Dexterity, Family Games, Keeper, Kids Games

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Monday, January 03, 2005

Jurrasic Jumble

You know the classic trading game Pit? The game where everyone is yelling out numbers and trading cards? Two. Two. Two. Two? Hold on to that thought. And while you're holding on, do you by any chance remember that equally classic card game called "Spoons"? You know, the one where you put a bunch of spoons or grabbable things in the middle of the table - one less than there are players - and everyone is kind of passing cards around and trying to get four of a kind and as soon as someone succeeds that person grabs a spoon and then everyone else grabs, and the player who doesn't get a spoon pretty much loses? Got it? Good. Because now you have a very good idea why Jurrasic Jumble is such a fun game.

The object of the game is more difficult than Spoons. There are nine cards that you're trying to assemble, and each card is of a different color. And, like Pit there are a couple of cards you really don't want to have at game end, so there's that to think about. And while you're doing all that thinking, there's the fact that someone else has already taken the spoon (actually, a large, rubbery plastic bone that you kinda want to chew), and if you don't notice in time, no matter how close you are to winning, you don't. Which is really what makes this game unique and uniquely playworthy. Especially for kids. It's a perfect combination of two very fun games.

Yes, it's about dinosaurs and bones and paleontology and stuff. But that really has very little to do with the fun of it all. For kids, like I said, especially. And though the manufacturer suggests that kids as young as 6 would like the game, we found that it was a little too much at first, even for an intelligent 7-year old. And though the manufacturer also suggests that the game is adultworthy, it's really a little, well, shallow for extended replay. But for kids, and families with kids who are 7ish or older, and, of course, for adults whose brains are slightly fogged, it's a great game. And as many as 9 people can play it. And it's one of those games that most definitely gets merrier as more people get involved.

Labels: Kids Games

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Thursday, December 23, 2004

Bright Idea Games

Bright Idea Games are designed for kids. They're maybe not complex enough for us grownups. But if the kids are having fun, well, then, they're fun enough. Way more than Chutes and Ladders, let me tell you. Maya (7) and I (63) have played two of these games - Gopher It and Catch the Match - enough times for them to become a cherished part of our personal play stash. Both games are made of cards that are thick enough to withstand bouts of childlike glee. Both are different enough to be suitable for different moods. Gopher It is a game of luck and risk. Catch the Match a game of visual perception.

Of these two, the technology of Catch the Match is maybe the more impressive. There are 15 large, thick cards. On each card, there are 15 images. Given any pair of cards, there are exactly two images that match. Neat, huh. Exactly two. The idea of the game, be the first to spot the match. Easy to understand. Simple enough for a 7-year-old. And me, too. Maya and I have tied twice. What else can I say?

Gopher It reminded me a little of Sid Sackson's Can't Stop. You mish up all the satisfyingly thick cards, face down. There are three suits: carrots, nuts and apples. You can pick up to three cards, but if you pick two of the same kind of card in a row, you lose your turn. So you can't be too greedy. But you can't be too conservative either. As a result, there's just enough tension to keep everyone in play, without taking winning too seriously.

Labels: Kids Games

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Sunday, October 24, 2004

Snorta

Snorta is even simpler than the rules make it out to be. And more fun. There's a deck of 100 animal cards. The deck is divided equally between 4-8 players. Players take turns exposing the top card in their pile. When cards match, the first player to make the sound of the other player's animal wins.

Other player's animal? Well, see, there's a bag full of plastic animals. Really nicely sculpted and painted cartoonishly funny-looking animals that live in a cloth drawstring bag. Each player picks, and that becomes the player's animal. And that animal gets hidden in a similarly nicely sculpted barn-like, doghouse-looking thing. So you have to remember everybody's animal. Which isn't so easy - especially when you're looking at cards with other animals printed on them.

If you lose, you have to pick up all the cards that the other player has already turned over. Depending on how long it's been since a match has been drawn, that pile can get punishingly large. So the tension builds. And the excitement mounts. And the laughter frequently turns into something approximating hysteria.

And then there's these occasional "swap" cards hidden in the animal card deck, which let you draw a different animal from the animal sack. Just in case people actually get too good at remembering the animal you used to be.

The mechanics of the game are subtle enough to make you want to play again and again. Even though a match can only involve two players at a time, all players are engaged. If you're not one of the players involved in a match, your pile just grows one card larger - making the possibility of success next round even that much more enticing. If you have a match fight with someone with a large pile, and you lose, it makes the loss that much more punishing. Combine the visual and memory challenge with the sheer silliness of people making animal noises at each other, and you get Snorta - a Major FUN Award-winning party game that's competitive enough to take seriously, and silly enough not to care. Snorta is an ideal family game - one that adults can enjoy (our Tasting group ranged in age from 7-63, including a couple of advanced teens) as much as their kids.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Party Games

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Monday, August 16, 2004

Patch Products introduces see-through card technology

Patch Product's UNO-like card game SWAP received its Major Fun award almost six months ago, so it'd take some doing for them to get yet another review for basically the same game. Well, some doing has definitely been done.

Patch has updated the game with a new deck of see-through cards. Though the game remains virtually unchanged, the experience of the game is most definitely and delightfully enhanced by this new card technology. It's the feel. The wonderful shufflability. The welcome washability. And the slight, but welcome advantage of being able to hold more cards in your hand and still see them all. Because the cards are transparent, you can make a more narrow fan and still see all the cards in your hand.

Though the cards are transparent, the markings on the cards are not. That also is key to making this new technology so attractive. Your opponent still can not see what's on your cards.

Swap is the perfect game for this technology. Because the action is often very fast (especially when a "slap" card is played), paper cards all too easily get bent. Because a hand can get quite large (sometimes you find yourself holding as many as 20 cards), the thinness of the cards, and the ability to see through to the next card in a tightly arranged fan makes it all the more playable. Finally, SWAP is the kind of family game that merits sitting around a table full of snacks. Hence, card washability becomes a most welcome attribute.

It is unusual for a game company to improve on an already successful game. It is even more unusual for that improvement to be noteworthy. Hence, the kudos.

Labels: Kids Games

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Thursday, April 01, 2004

Top Frog

It's a kids' version of backgammon called Abagio. Except that it's not really backgammon. And not just a kids' game, either.

The goal in Abagio is to get all of your 12 frogs into the pond before your opponent does but it's not cut and it's certainly not very dry, this pond. You move from the often perilous 'outer path' to the (relative) safety of the 'inner path' but there's one more space looming ahead, right before the finish line, where you can't protect your frogs and a hit might just send you back....all the way to the 'root' space.

Reading through the rules, we spot a reference to 'hitting a blot' and are worried that the game will be too 'backgammony'...'gammonish'? .....'gammonesque'??

But we're quickly past that. Several great wrinkles (ah......those beautiful wrinkles) make Abagio something quite special. There are "leaps" and "heaps" and "capping" and "maxing". And even a neutral "top frog" that both players can use to protect some of their pieces...if they qualify.

Designer April McCoy's board is gorgeous...like a pond in a stained glass window. The froggy-pieces stack up neatly. There are even beautiful see-through dice, for frog's sake! And plenty of opportunities to use your head in Abagio. (Say it out loud...Ah-BAH-Zhee-Oh...even sounds like fun, doesn't it?)

Before we know it, the game is over and we're craving one more. The second time around shows us more strategic possibilities and we're 'toad'ally hooked. Abagio is, in a word, Frogalicious! (Hey! If they can make up the word "Abagio".....)

Yum! Yum! Major FUN!


(updated 11/9/2009)

Labels: Kids Games

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Saturday, March 27, 2004

Swap

You know UNO. And you certainly know Crazy Eights. Which could understandably lead you to the conclusion that you also know Swap.

Like UNO, which is like Crazy Eights, Swap is a get-rid-of-your-cards-first kind of game. Like UNO and Crazy Eights, you do that by having cards in your hand that match the color or number of the top card in the discard pile. Unless you have a wild card.

Unlike UNO or Crazy Eights, one of the wild card things you can do is swap hands with other players. And it's this particularly wild thing that makes Swap into a unique and welcome addition to the Crazy Eights / UNO family.

The opportunity to swap hands results in such a profound change in the strategy and feel of the game, and adds so much to the general hilarity, that it becomes almost instantly and unquestionably Major FUN.

Hence, the award.

Labels: Kids Games

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Friday, March 26, 2004

Balancing Act

Balancing Aliens never disappointed us. And we were already excited, just opening the box. And from there, it just got more and more exciting. Such an elegantly made instrument of fun, so finely tuned, so subtle, so strategic, so silly.

The kind of silly you have to watch very, very carefully, and think about alot. That you can expect to get when you have a round game board, with bowling pin shaped pieces, that sits on a big screw, that can be raised or lowered, for different skill-levels. A board that has two sides, each of which a totally different game, each just as obviously the only game possible.

I mean, you could play it with 7-year olds who could probably beat you. And the very steady-of-hand 80 year old. And those of the less-steady persuasion could direct others where to move and get just involved in the strategic implications of it all. And you could be each as strategic as you can possibly get, and still, anyone might win, might be drawn inexorably towards adding just one more alien, teetering on the very precipice of improbability. Until lured by both scoring and collective-admiration potential, you upset the delicate balance, and all fall down.

Though dexterity is a definite advantage, winning the game is all about intuiting its strategic and physical dynamics. Even if your hand is not steady enough, you can still direct some younger hand and feel fully engaged in play.

Balancing Aliens is a fun toy and a fun game. Major FUN. As in award-winning. It's a near perfect model for what a good family game should be like. Because it's based on physical as well as strategic properties, and because the strategic properties are so well expressed by the physical properties, the rules of each of the two balancing games are as apparent to kids as they are to grown-ups. Kids will play with kids. Grownups with grownups. Kids with grownups. Equals in skill and delight.

Labels: Kids Games

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Sunday, August 24, 2003

Catch 22

Catch 22 will remind you of Parcheesi, which, as everyone knows, is a derivative of the ancient Indian game Pachisi, which has only a little to do with why this game is so darn much fun. The Pachisi-likeness of it all has something to do with the fun - it makes the game feel familiar and that much easier to learn. But let me tell you right now, what we got here is as much like Pachisi as chess.

Yes, there's a bunch of plastic pawns, but you get only one. And there's a die - only one. And there's a board with a track on it - only the track is much more complex. And then there's this bunch of plastic blocks - 5 for each player. And a big bunch of little plastic poker chips. And that, equipment-wise, is basically it.

But the game itself is far more than a race. It's a vendetta.

See, you roll a die and hope that eventually you land on a space with some chips on it. So you can get those chips. Which is cool. And then, once you get enough of them, you try to find the closest open path to one of the finish squares. So you can win. Except if anyone lands on you, that person gets your chips. Which means as soon as you have enough chips, suddenly you're everybody's meat, if you know what I mean. Oh, yes, people can also put their little plastic cubes in your way. And just when you're getting close to the goal, and around all those blocks, there's the possibility that someone will switch places with you and send you somewhere you really don't want to be. And then someone else might pounce on you. And then you can join everyone else trying to steal that guy's gold.

There's a lot more strategy than chance. Way more strategy than you need to keep the game interesting. And just enough chance to keep the game fun. The sudden shifts in fortune make winning unpredictable, and can keep the game going for an hour or more, even though you spent maybe ten minutes figuring out how to play it.

Catch 22 is an ingenious race and chase game, most Major FUN Award-worthy.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Senior-Worthy

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Wednesday, April 16, 2003

3 Stones

Almost any game that is based on Tic Tac Toe is easy to learn. That's one of the things that makes 3 Stones so appealing. On the other hand, this is the very reason so many games are based on Tic Tac Toe - from the Japanese game of Go-Moku to Connect Four and Toss Across. Which makes it truly noteworthy to find a genuinely original game that has anything to do with getting three or four or five of something in a row. Which makes me especially delighted to present the coveted Major FUN Award to 3 Stones.

3 Stones is played on a lovely wooden board. And yes, there are black stones and white stones, and you have to be one or the other, and you in fact get one point every time you get three in a row. Included is this lovely fabric, draw-string pouch. And you start the game by putting all the stones into this loveliness. And then, on your turn, you draw a stone, and play it. I did mention that you put all the stones, the black and the white, into the pouch, didn't I? Which makes you wonder, doesn't it, what you would do if you drew a stone that wasn't your color? Why, you'd play it, of course. What else could you do?

Interesting. You don't know what color you'll get. And you have to play it, even if it's not your own. Already beyond Tic Tac Toe. Very beyond. Did I mention that there are some clear stones as well? And that they count for either player? I don't think I did. Neither did I mention that you have to put your stone in the same row or column that was last played.

Marc and Bob started playing 3 Stones at our last Tasting. Violating the very premise and significance of the "Tasting" concept, they didn't stop playing until they had filled the entire board. "No, no," I vainly explained, "we're only trying to get a feel for the game. We don't need to play it to it's very end. There are so many more to taste before we go." The ears upon which my words fell were deaf. The game, unique and completely absorbing. The award-worthiness, undeniable.

Labels: Kids Games, Senior-Worthy, Thinking Games

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Wednesday, February 19, 2003

Muggins

They call Muggins "aerobics for the mind." Because you might need to multiply and divide as well as add and subtract, they call it a math game. And, yes, it's been reportedly a huge success in math classes. As they say on the home page, it's a game "for those who love math or those who hate math, those who are math challenged and those who are math geniuses, these games are guaranteed to challenge, build math and thinking skills, and increase self-confidence." But that's no reason for you to think of Muggins as anything other than pure fun.

Muggins can be played by up to four players or teams. Three dice are thrown. Players try to combine the dice through arithmetic operations so as to cover one of the 36 open scoring spaces on the board. You get a higher score if you have covered two or more adjacent spaces. And, if you throw a triple, you get the added, and deliciously vindictive opportunity, to remove your opponents' markers.

If you think you don't have a move (you can't figure out a combination of the dice that will result in one of the available spaces), you pass. If someone else can figure out how to use your dice to make a legal move, that person can call "muggins" and take that move for his or her own (hence, the name of the game - Muggins - as used in the game of Cribbage for a similar situation).

And, for those seeking the more, shall we say "participative" form of Muggins, we introduce the true meaning of Muggins, as found on Dictionary.com: \Mug"gins\, v. t. In certain games, to score against, or take an advantage over (an opponent), as for an error, announcing the act by saying ``muggins.'' In other words, when you find yourself not able to calculate your best move fast enough, just put your marker anywhere and see if anyone Muggins you. Of course you risk losing yet another marker, but, in the heat of the game, you can never tell what a well-timed bluff will get you.

The set (a wooden board, enough marbles for four players, three dice) also includes three polyhedral (12-sided) dice used in Supermuggins and, oddly enough, Muggins, Jr.

Yes, Muggins is just about your ideal educational game. Yes, you exercise arithmetic and algebraic skills. But it's the game part, even more than the educational part that makes Muggins so clearly Major-FUN-Award-worthy. It's a fun, challenging, exciting game for 1-4 players, or teams, that can be played by kids 12-up (younger, still, if using the Muggins, Jr. variation). The fact that it's educational is mere gilding on this highly playable lily of a game.

Labels: Kids Games, Senior-Worthy, Thinking Games

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Thursday, December 19, 2002

Backround

BackRound (no, I didn't misspell it. It's not Background. It's BackRound) is another Major FUN Award-winning wordgame from the Coodju people.

Let's start with an example. If someone said "led-nack" to you, offering you the hint "don't burn out on this word," what would you answer. Why, obviously, "candle." Let's continue with another example. How about "top-eat," which, says the hint, "Blows its lid"? But of course, "teapot." Think you've got it? How about "ode-dees-cut?" Want a hint? "Formally speaking, you should have this."

A BackRound, the designers explain, is "a word pronounced backwards." Notice the emphasis. It's pretty much central to what makes this game so fascinatingly fun. Yeah, it's about backwards words. But not about the spelling. And all about the pronounciation.

There are 80 cards, each with 4 different puzzles (which makes for, count'em, 320 total). You need at least two people, so one can be the Reader. You can play with more. Many, many more. You can divide them into teams. You can play every-one-for-him/her-self. Scoring is easy. You solve it, you get the card. You have the most cards at the end of the game, you win.

Then there's the not-actually-obligatory timer, which you can use to add more tension, when more tension is needed. Which, in our case, given our collective obstinance, wasn't.

And there's even a cloth carry-this-game-everywhere bag, which, once you play it, you're more than likely to do.

Should you need further snish-kurt-sni, you'll find them clearly posted on their ties-behw.

Labels: Kids Games, Party Games, Thinking Games, Word Games

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Tuesday, December 17, 2002

Coodju

Who'd think that a spelling game could be interesting enough, fun enough, exciting enough, to make into a party? Well, Matt and Derry, two, young, entrepreneuring game designers, certainly did. Enough to build a whole game company around. And, after playing it for five minutes, I was as convinced as they were.

Coodju is the kind of game the Major FUN Award was invented for. It's innovative, unique, easy to learn, fast, challenging, funny fun - and it's all done with spelling! You (at least 4 of you over-twelve-years-old types) play more or less in teams. Your partner has a card with five words on it. She reads them to you one-at-a-time. All you have to do to win the card is spell the words correctly. Of course, depending on the roll of the die, you might have to spell the words backwards, or inside out, or spell every other letter, or only the vowels or consonants. And depending on the roll of the other die, you might have twice as much time, or get twice or three times as many points, or take away points from the other guys.

You can almost feel those braincells burning as you try to spell a word "outside-in." P-Y-A-T-R is obviously PARTY. But what, one might ask, is H-S-A-S-P-E-P-N-I?

We liked everything about this game. We liked the challenge. We liked the scoring. We liked the dice. We liked the portable, two-compartment card tray that made it so easy for the Reader to keep track of which cards have been used. We liked the box that had the rules printed right on it. We didn't especially like the scoring pad or sand timer. We appreciated having them. And what, after all, is especially to like about scoring pads and sand timers?

And we especially liked knowing that there was a Coodju Lite - a different package with words that seven-year-olds could spell, a spinner instead of dice, and no scorepad. Coodju Lite is an elegant adaptation of Coodju, reduced in complexity to appeal to the age-impaired, but not reduced in play value. In fact, we found that because the cards in Coodju lite were a different color, we could combine games so the whole family could play together. The designers even included a cloth bag, knowing that kids would cherish the game enough to want to take it everywhere.

As to the "we" - last Sunday's Game Tasting group included myself, my wife, Rocky; the amazing Ivory (a beloved, game-addicted regular), and the co-inventorsm them-very-selves. It just so happened that they lived a couple beaches north of us, and, despite my misgivings about undue influence, they turned out to be wonderful, fun people, who appreciated games as much as we did, and we delighted in their delight as much as ours. It was a rare opportunity, and fortunate in deed that they had such genuinely BERNIE-worthy games to share with us.

That inside-out word, for those of you who are still seeking: HAPPINESS.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Party Games, Word Games

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Monday, December 16, 2002

Sequence

Despite my declared prediliction for "games that make people laugh," every now and then I come across a "serious" game that is so unique, so playable, and so readily invites adaptation and variation, that I just can't let it go by without giving it a Major FUN Award- a game like Sequence.

Sequence is based on the Japanese game of Go-Moku - a kind of tic-tac-toe in which it takes five-in-a-row in order to win. Go-Moku is a classic strategy game, and you'll find a great deal about it on the Internet. This site discusses strategy and interesting variations of the game. There's a site devoted to Go-Moku and it's variations including the classic games of Renju and Pente. Here's the International Internet Go-Moku Foundation. And, for your immediate gratification, here's an online version.

Basing any game on Go-Moku is a fortuitous choice. It is an easy game to understand, even for a seven-year-old. And is strategically deep enough to attract adult play. An even more fortuitous decision is to introduce an element of luck. Suddenly, this game of pure strategy is as much about chance as it is about skill. Which levels the playing field even further, making it an ideal game for a very wide age range. It's a difficult line to straddle, the line between chance and strategy. Sequence not only crosses that line, but arrives at a uniquely playable game.

The Sequence board is a 10x10 grid. A playing card, with the exception of jacks, is depicted on each square in the grid. Jacks are wild. Also included are two decks of cards and three sets of playing pieces. Two to three players or teams can play. Cards are dealt, the squares available for play being determined by the cards that player is holding. Two-eyed Jacks are wild, allowing the player to add a piece anywhere on the board. One-eyed Jacks are called "anti-wild," and are used to remove any piece (the famous "screw-you factor"). The wildness of the Jacks is a prefect touch, adding an extra layer of luck, strategy and interaction.

Given these elements, it is easy to see how readily we can generate new variations and modifications. In addition to the classic Go-Moku variations, we also have cards to play with - cards that can be used to level the playing field (winners have to start the next game with fewer cards), cards that can be declared wild - with all sorts of wild possibilities (reposition one or more of your or your opponent's pieces, reverse direction of play, exchange colors...).

Sequence is an ideal family game. Even for a very large family. The board is well-made, the pieces sturdy, the cards easy to shuffle and hold. And the game is deep enough to withstand hours of play, variation, exploration and invention.

Labels: Family Games, Kids Games, Senior-Worthy, Thinking Games

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