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Friday, November 27, 2009
Siam
 Didier Dhorbait's abstract strategy game Siam is so beautifully crafted that you will treasure it even before you learn how to play it. Which is a good thing for two reasons: 1) the English translation of the rules is, well, very, shall we say, challenging, in a French kind of way; and 2) the rules are what some may call "unconventional," requiring you to exercise some conceptual effort before you fully appreciate the cleverness and complexity underlying their comparative simplicity. Fortunately, Arthur Reilly has written a satisfyingly clear English description of the rules - clear enough to help you through most of your preconceptions to a truly remarkable strategy game - one that you can play in ten minutes with anyone old enough to appreciate a good, abstract game. The lovely wooden board is inscribed with a 5x5 matrix. There are three kinds of pieces: the elephants and rhinoceros figures are beautifully rendered, the elephants rearing on their hind legs, the rhinoceros sitting and looking like something out of a collection of Victorian grotesquerie. The other pieces look vaguely like mountains. And since the mountains are as big as the elephants and rhinoceros, the whole set conveys a sense of the fantastic. One player plays the elephants (and moves first) the other, rhinoceroses. The game begins with the three mountain pieces in a line in the center of the board. Players take turns doing one of the following: bringing a piece on to the board, taking a piece off the board, reorienting a piece, moving a piece (one space horizontally or vertically, in the direction being faced), or pushing other pieces. The object of the game is to be the first player to push a mountain off the board.  The pushing is where the conventions begin to get un-. If one of your pieces is facing a mountain, it can push the mountain in the direction in which it is facing. If two opposing pieces are facing each other, they cancel each other out. So neither can push or be pushed. If one your opponent's piece is in line with yours, and you are not facing it, you can get pushed. If two of your opponent's pieces are facing yours, you can also get pushed, even if you're facing them. In fact, you can have a whole bunch of your pieces (well, up to 5) in a line, all facing the wrong way, and one of your opponent's pieces, facing the right way, can push them all. Then there are the rules about the edges of the board (all important, since that's where you're trying to push the mountains off of, as well as where your pieces can get pushed off and where they can be re-entered). Since they surround the board, it means that, unlike chess, checkers and the rest, you're not playing in any specific direction - a major convention-breaker, chock-full of strategic implications. And the subtle but significant consequences of being able to take pieces off the board and later bring them back into play on some other edge, add yet another chock-fullness to one's cup of strategic nuance. Remarkably deep for a ten minute game. Remarkably lovely. Major FUN. (Siam is available in the US via Fred Distribution, and in Europe through Ferti) Labels: Keeper, Thinking Games
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
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
24/7
 24/7 is an easy-to-learn game of strategy and chance for 2-4 players. There are 4 sets of 40 tiles, numbered from 1 to 10. The tiles look a little like dominoes, a little like playing cards. There's a folding board with a 7x7 grid. Each player fills her tile-holder with tiles drawn randomly from a bag. After one tile is placed anywhere on the board, players take turns adding adjacent tiles, diagonally, horizontally or vertically. The object of the game is to place a tile so that it, along with tiles already played, creates diagonals, horizontals or verticals of: - a sum (of 7 or 24)
- a run (a sequence of 3 or more numbers in, uh, sequential order)
- or a set (of 3 or 4 of the same number)
At first, the scoring for each is a little difficult to remember (sum of 7=20, run of 3=30, run of 4=40, sum of 24=40, run of 5=50, set of 3=50, run of 6=60, set of 4=60, bonus=60). A quick referral to a page from the thoughtfully-provided score pad resolves that issue quite nicely. You get the 60-point bonus if, on the same move, you get the sum of 7 on one line and the sum of 24 on another. You also get a bonus if you are able to use 7 tiles in creating the sum of 24. Forgive me. I said "points." The recommended term is "minutes." Even though minutes are actually points, it does give you the feeling that you're, so to speak, "playing for time" - which, clearly, is the theme of the game. There are a few other rules of note. Every, so to speak, "time" you create a 24 you place one of those red, jewel-like stones on the empty spaces on either end of the 24 line. This helps fill the board a little more quickly, remind players not to create a sum greater than 24 (which one must never, never do), and explains why that bag of gem-like splendor is included in the game. In addition to all these scoring considerations, there are "double time" spaces on the board (indicated by hour glasses), which, when occupied, double the value of the score for that play, and add further complexity to your strategic contemplations.  There is always an element of chance (you have no control over what tiles you are given to play with), and an equal invitation to engage in much stratego-arithmetico thinking. The balance between the two is finely tuned, and combines just enough tension to keep the game engaging, with just enough sheer luck to keep you from taking it too seriously. Hence, it is close to the perfect family game. There are several variations to explore - just enough to encourage you to create your own. Some educators and parents will find themselves embracing the game because of the arithmetic calculations involved, but we found the strategic considerations far more interesting and challenging. Designed by Carey Grayson, the game is actually quite easy to learn. The whole game can be played in half-an-hour or less, so it will fit nicely with the attention spans of most casual game players. For a family whose kids enjoy games like Scrabble and rummy, 24/7 will quickly become a favorite. The tiles lovely to the touch, the wooden racks flawlessly functional. Because you can place a starting tile anywhere on the board, every game is different enough to engage your curiosity and challenge your reasoning. Fun whenever you have time (as it were) to play together, and I predict you will want to find the time (so to speak) to play this game! Labels: Family Games, Thinking Games
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Kamisado
 Kamisado is a strategy game for two players. There are basic rules. There are advanced rules. The basic rules can be explained in less than a minute: you can move a piece any number of squares in a straight line, either diagonally or vertically forward. After the first move, you can only move the piece whose color is the same as the square that your opponent's piece landed on. The first player to get a piece to her opponent's home row wins. Each player has eight pieces. Each piece is a different color, matching one of the colors on the board. Which explains why the game itself is so visually appealing. The board unfolds into quite a large playing field (20"x20"). The plastic pieces are also large (two inches wide). They look like castles, each with a dragon nesting on top. On one set of pieces the dragons are shiny black, on the other, gold. You can play a game in less than five minutes. Victory is satisfyingly sudden. Defeat, mercifully quick. You can play it with anyone old enough to understand checkers, and yet it is strategically deep enough to intrigue a chess player. At first glance, the eight-page instruction booklet (10" x 10" - the same size as the board when it is folded) looks forbidding. But all you need read to play the game are a few rules. Once you've played a few rounds of the game, you'll be more than motivated enough to read the rest of the booklet, as well as the accompanying eight-page booklet illustrating different moves. As you read more, you discover more possibilities and intricacies. You learn that a game can take many rounds to play. That the strange rings included in the game are used during these many-round games to crown a winning piece, and to give it extra powers for the next round. And on and on you go, discovering more and more nuances as your appreciation for the game, and your skills increase. Everything about the presentation and packaging of the game reveals a deep appreciation for its play value and uniqueness. The size of the board and the pieces, the packaging, the art. Conceived by Peter Burley, with artistic design by Peter Dennis, Kamisado exemplifies the kind of thinking game that the Major FUN program was developed for - elegant, well-executed, easy to earn, appealing to a wide range of players, deep enough to play again and again. Labels: Keeper, Thinking Games
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Tayu
 Tayu is an elegant strategy game in which players take turns laying "river tiles," competing to build connected waterways from one side of the board to the other. One player attempts to create as many channels as possible from north to the south of the board while the other tries to do the same from the east to the west sides of the board. Published by Goliath Games, designed by Niek Neuwahl, the game takes its name from the legendary emperor of China, Yu the Great, the founder of the Xia Dynasty, who, according to Wikipedia, taught his subjects how to control flooding along China's rivers and lakes. There are 84 rectangular tiles. Each tile is inscribed with a branching line. These two attributes - rectangular tiles and branching lines - help to make the game as unique as it is. There are three kinds of tiles. On some tiles, the line reaches three different sides. On others, only two. In most versions, players take turns drawing the tiles from a bag and placing each new tile adjacent to one that has already been played. The game continues until all the tiles have been played. Score is then calculated. To determine the score, count all the tiles whose rivers end on one side of the board, and then multiply that number by the sum of all the tiles whose rivers end on the other (so you score even if your river only reaches one side, but you score much more if your rivers reach both). There are four raised circles on each side of the board. Rivers that connect to those circles count double.  The game is very easy to learn - it takes only a few minutes to understand how to play. The whole game can be played in half an hour or less. Like any good game, understanding how to win is quite another undertaking - one that can keep you intrigued for many, many hours of deep play. The game is nicely made. The tiles have buttons on the bottom which fit nicely into depressions on the board, though some care has to be taken to prevent yourself from accidentally knocking a tile out of position once its placed on the board. The strong, plastic board comes in two halves that snap securely together. The large, hefty, drawstring bag filled with tiles and the disassembled board fit perfectly into the game box. Tayu is essentially a two-player game, though the three- and four-player versions are all worth playing. In the four-player version, players work as partners, one team playing East-West, the other North-South. Since all eight of our Tasters were interested in the game, we played it in teams, four on each side, sliding the board back and forth across the table. The board slid easily and the pieces stayed in place. It turned out to be fun and surprisingly absorbing for all players. Considering how many people were involved, it was a testimony to the visual and strategic attraction of the game. In the three-player version, the third player scores by trying to prevent each of the other players from succeeding. Players determine what constitutes success by a process of bidding, like in contract bridge, trying to guess ahead of time how many points they will score. There's an "advanced" variation where tiles are taken out of the bag and placed face down on the table. The tiles whose rivers reach three sides are distinguished by a concentric ring design on the center button on the reverse side. With all the tiles face-down on the table, you can easily see which have river segments that reach three sides, and be a bit more strategic in selecting the kind of tile that you bring into play. All of these refinements point to a game that has been carefully designed to provide its players with very good reasons to explore the game in depth, to share it with many friends, and to cherish it for many years. Labels: Thinking Games
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Cir*Kis
 Cir*Kis is as much of a puzzle as it is a strategy game as it is an exploration of the geometry of the decagon (like an octagon, only with 10 sides). One of the interesting properties of a decagon is that it can surround a five-pointed star with satisfyingly geometric aplomb. Each of up to 4 players gets a collection of 9 different shapes of the same color. These shapes vary in size from the easy-to-find-but-difficult-to-position "big slice" to the easy-to-lose "sliver" which can only be placed in clearly demarcated spaces on the edges of the board. The board is covered with a raised pattern of circles (actually decagons) and stars and irregular shapes connecting them. The pieces fit into and over the design on the board. It requires a certain amount of dexterity and a significant amount of perceptual discrimination to figure out what fits where. The strategy, of course, is in understanding why.  After the first move (the rules suggest that the youngest player goes first), the next player has to place their piece so that it is adjacent to the last played. As soon as a player is able to complete a shape (a circle or star), she scores. If her color is in the majority, she scores 10 points. If not, only 5. You can also get a free turn, which means that you can take the lead, which can be of significant strategic import if you are significantly strategic. The opportunities are rather rare, which make them of even more strategic interest - you must either place one of your pieces in a space surrounded by other pieces, or complete the center star or be the first to place a sliver piece. Visually, Cir*Kis is as compelling as any other tessellation. The conceptual challenge of separating figure from ground adds significantly the strategic challenge of playing the game. For 2-4 players, aged 8 and up, Cir*Kis offers a unique challenge to the eye and mind. It might remind you of Blokus or Pentominoes, but there really is no other game quite like it - lovely to look at, visually challenging, strategically deep enough to be played again and again, Major FUN. Labels: Puzzles, Thinking Games
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
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
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
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
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Six
 What would be a good name for a game played with six-sided hexagons (as if there were any other kind)? Just six-sided (I'm making a point here) hexagons? Not even a board? Where you try to be the first to make a shape out of...wait for it... six wooden black or red six-sided hexagons? What about a strategic game where you take turns adding a hexagon of your black or red color to any other hexagon already on the table, or floor, or blanket? Until all your lovely, smoothly wooden hexagons are played, and then you can move them from hexagon-adjoining place to any other hexagon-adjoinable place? And you win if you can get six of your own in a row, or triangle or in a six-sided circle? What do you think of " Six"? Sheer coincidence that the publishers also chose to call it Six? I think not. Even though you each have 19 hexagon-pieces. 19. Not the everso appropriately six-divisible 18 hexagon-pieces. You still get a, dare I say it, Major Fun experience, which, if Major Fun gave star-ratings, is clearly six-star-worthy. And then there's what one might think of as the "Advanced Major Fun" to be had by players of the advanced version, because, see, after you play for a while you discover how you change the entire mass of hexagons into two, and you begin to wonder, almost without reading the advanced rules, what doing so might do to your opponent, like, for example, put the entire smaller cluster (wherein a substantial majority of your opponent's pieces happen to reside) out of play for the rest of the game. Steffen Mühlhäuser's game of hexagons is newly made available in the U.S. through FoxMind, and still published in Europe by Steffen-Spiele. Most games can be played in from six to 36 minutes. Easy to learn for those of checker-playing persuasion. Easy to carry around, rules and all, in a conveniently included drawstring bag or its lovely six-sided box. Labels: Keeper, Thinking Games
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Abalone
 Let us begin our exploration of the game classic Abalone (recently re-released by Foxmind) by paying particular attention to the rule that: the winner is the first player to push a total of SIX of his opponent's marbles off the board. So, already you're intrigued - marbles, marble-pushing, pushing marbles off the board, a board you can push marbles off of into. And then there's the number six (6). I stress this number because, after thorough investigation, lasting conceptual days and actally maybe a couple entire hours, with fewer and fewer marbles and the way the game can go on and on and on, it stops being fun. Unless of course you remember that you're supposed to stop playing the game as soon as soneone has eliminated six of his opponent's lovely large, shiny, black or white marbles. Marble-pushing. Pushing one or two or three of your marbles in a line, to the next space. Marbles resting in hexagonal sections of a hexagonal board, with marble-size channels linking the hive-like cells. Making it possible to push even four, or possibly five marbles (three of yours and two of your opponent's, because to push your opponent's marbles you have to have more than he does, and since you can't push more than three of yours, it stands to reason. I think the game designers (Laurent Levi and Michel Lalet) wanted you to know that this one's going to be fun. Marble-pushing. What an interesting, fun thing to do especially with beautiful, large, glass marbles. So black and white. So back and forth. So tempting to make up your own variations in which you can push let's say up to five of your marbles, which would mean up to four of your opponents, because it's just so much fun to move all those marbles in a row. O there are rules. Surprisingly complex rules governing how many marbles you can move, when you can't, how far, each of which add yet another possible variation to explore, once variation-exploring is what you're into. In sum, don't forget: six pieces and the game's over! Maybe seven. Maybe three. Labels: Keeper, Thinking Games
Friday, July 10, 2009
Batik
 When I ask you to identify a board game that is a strategic puzzle game for two players that also involves dexterity, what game pops into your well-informed head? Would it, perhaps, be Batik?
You know, Batik, that lovely, wooden, puzzle-looking game in the Gigamic collection - yes, that collection of wooden strategic games available in the US from Fundex Games.
Batik, the puzzle game designed by Kris Burmin, in which two players take turns dropping two different colors of wooden, tangram-like pieces into a wood and plexiglass frame.
One of the most self-explanatory games around, especially for those who've played Connect Four. Even those who've played with Connect Four, just to see what happens, like a checker-dropping 3-year-old.
See, when it's your turn, especially in the beginning of the game, it's not just a question of dropping any old shape into the frame. First of all, you have to pick a strategically significant shape (big? pointy? tiny? smooth?), and you have to get it to land pretty much just where you want it to land, somewhere preferably snug, or not, 'cause you often win by taking up more, rather than less space. And there's just a tad of luck, too. Taking turns, using any piece you want (unless you're playing the official "use only your own piece" version), making sure that you're not the player whose piece doesn't fit ertirely within the frame.
 Not that I'm recommending you should, but nonetheless gleefully noting that Pete Hornburg figured out how to get all the pieces to fit perfectly inside the game frame, thereby demonstrating the puzzle-likeness of it all, while more than hinting at the possibility of the perfect game and the observation that you're playing in a game frame.
Lovely, the whole thing. Easy to learn. Short games (maybe 10 minutes). Fun for a remarkably wide range of players. There's the dexterity and luck part, so it's not necessarily the smartest who always wins. Which inevitably makes for more fun. Unless you get too serious about the game. On the other hand, it's good to know you can get serious about it if you have to - just in case. Labels: Dexterity, Keeper, Puzzles, Thinking Games
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Pylos
 At first glance, Pylos looks like a game where players race to have their color bead on top of the pyramid. Which is pretty much what the game is about. But if you try to do just exactly that, the game seems silly in deed. The second player always wins. Unless you read the rules.
If you find a square of beads already on the board, you can put one bead on top, either from your "reserve" (the troughs on your side of the board), or by moving a bead that is already on the board. If you build a new square of your beads (four adjacent to each other), you get to take one or two (the number being of great, yet subtle strategic significance) of your "free" beads (freedom being measured in terms of not having any other piece on top of you), and return them to your reserve. Which gives you an extra piece or two to play. Which makes it more likely that the other player will run of pieces before the top bead can be placed.
It helps if you understand the game of Nim, or the chess concept of opposition. It's about timing, about leaving the other player with one less move.
It especially helps if you read the rules carefully. Even though Pylos is an easy game to learn, and the rules are brief and succinct, they are also quite dense. The game looks so much like a simple race to the top that it's almost too easy to overlook what the game is really about. It's a strategic game, requiring planning and logic.
There are "advanced rules" when you're ready for them (if you get 4-in-a-row on the bottom level or 3-in-a-row on the next level, you also get to take back one or two of your beads). And of course you can simplify the game by eliminating one of the two square rules (the rules allowing you to move or take one or two beads from the board when you complete a square of your color or a square of mixed color).
Designed by David G. Royffe, Pylos is another well-made, wooden, aesthetically pleasing, casual strategy game in the Gigamic collection, available in the US from Fundex Games. Recommended for two players over the age of seven, it takes about 10-20 minutes to play, maybe 10 minutes to learn. For younger players, making a pyramid out of beads, especially when you have a base that keeps all the beads in one place, is so satisfying, and so much fun, that it might take them a while to get to the beauty of the game itself. When they're ready, they will learn. Labels: Thinking Games
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Quarto
Quarto will remind you of Tic Tac Toe, until you actually play it. Like Tic Tac Toe, you're trying to get all your pieces in a row. And that's about it, Tic Tac Toe-wise.
There are 16 pieces. Eight blond pieces and eight dark pieces. But if you look a little closer, you'll notice that each piece is different. Nobody's a "color." Each has an attribute (size, color, shape, hollowness) that it shares with three other pieces. So your tall square blond solid piece is like the tall round dark piece that has a hole in it, because they are tall.
Your object is to add the piece that completes a row, column or diagonal of 4 pieces, all of which have the same attribute. Not necessarily all blond pieces or all short pieces, and certainly not all "your" pieces. Maybe all round pieces or all solid pieces. Or all pieces with a hole.
So things are not, as they say, merely black or white. To win, you have to continually change what attribute your looking for. Much more like life, strategically-speaking.
And then there's one more intriguingly life-like rule you should know about: You decide what piece your opponent will play next. Really. That's what you do. When your turn is over, you hand the piece of your choice to your opponent. And now that we're speaking about strategy, suddenly everything becomes much more subtle, even more interesting. Because you're trying everso hard to give your opponent the very piece she really wouldn't want. A piece, in fact, that might very well be the one piece that will make you win.
It's a unique concept in the world of strategy games - and uniquely welcome. Because you have to think even more closely about what your opponent might be thinking.
The designer, Blaise Müller, suggests a variation for those who need yet more strategic depth. How about counting 4-in-a-square as well as 4-in-a-row? Ah, how subtle. How challenging. Which makes you wonder about 4-in-an-L, or 4-in-a-zig-zag, even.
In other words, Quarto, like the majority of games in the Gigamic line, has just about all the elements that make a game Major FUN. It takes maybe 5 minutes to learn and maybe 5 minutes to play, and yet it's deep enough to be worth playing over and over. It's as easy to learn as it is because it's based on something familiar. It's as intriguing as it is, because it offers something unique. It's elemental enough to be easily modified to increase or decrease the challenge. It's made of wood. It's durable. It even has a drawstring bag to house the pieces. And, for a modest mailing fee, Fundex will replace any lost piece. Labels: Thinking Games
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
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
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Quoridor - an elegant game of strategic wall-building
 The rules for Quoridor are a paragraph long. You can understand everything you need to play the game in just a few minutes of watching someone play. The whole game takes five, maybe ten minutes. And yet it's completely absorbing, deeply challenging, often surprising, uniquely compelling. The game is played on a 9x9 grid. Deep channels separate the squares. These channels are deep enough to hold a "wall" - a thin wooden rectangle wide enough to span the border of two squares. Each player has a wooden pawn. The object of the game is to be the first player to advance her pawn to the opposite side of the board. Each player, in the two-player version, also gets ten walls. On your turn you can either move your pawn one square horizontally or vertically, or you can add a wall. These two choices seem remarkably familiar, elegantly embodying a fundamental political dynamic: to advance our own cause, or to prevent the opposition from advancing. The result of this debate is the creation of an evermore complex maze, again depicting something remarkably familiar to anyone engaged in political discourse. Republicans, democrats, lovers, parents, children. As Rob Solow reports, Quoridor is such an elegant game that it can be easily played (with some minor modifications) with a 5-year-old. And that is another important thing to note about Quoridor - because it is so easy to understand, because it's components are so few and so functional, it is also easy to modify. Like tic tac toe, Quoridor invites you to come up with new ways to play. Rob talks about giving the weaker player more walls. Since you can play several games in a half-hour, it is easy to create a handicapping system where the losing player gets two more fences for the next round. Quoridor comes with four different-color pawns. In the four-player version, each player gets five wall pieces, and the pawns start out in the center of the board rather than on the opposite ends. This points to yet another variable - the starting position of the pawns. Then there's the rule for what happens when two pawns meet. In the standard rules, they get to jump over each other. But that, clearly, is only the beginning. And one can't help but gleefully contemplate the implications of a two-player version with four pawns. Quoridor exemplifies the kind of thinking game that prompted the creation of the Major FUN award. It can be intensely competitive, but its elegance and brevity make playing the game itself fun, no matter who wins. Designed by Mirko Marchesi, Quoridor is another beautifully rendered wooden game from Gigamic, available in the US through the wise auspices of Fundex Games. Labels: Keeper, Thinking Games
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
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Jumbulaya - a severely challenging strategic word game
 If I wanted to explain the concept of "excruciating fun" to a word game player, I would start with Jumbulaya. You get 100 letter tiles, which are played onto a 9x10 matrix. Some of the letter tiles contain two-letter combinations (QU, CH, ED, ER, LY, ST, TH). Each row in the matrix is for another word. To start the game, the three center columns are seeded with tiles randomly drawn from a conveniently included drawstring bag. Each of up to 4 players then draws 5 more tiles to put on their letter rack. And the game begins. On your turn, you make a new word by rearranging, adding to, trading letters with the letters on any single row. You (temporarily) claim that word by using one of your color-coordinated scoring cubes (matching your tile rack). Until someone else rearranges, adds to, or trades letters with your word, that particular word remains yours. The longer it is, the higher your potential score. And so the game continues, turn-by-turn, word-by-word, until someone builds a 10-letter word, claims all 9 rows, or calls a seven-or-more letter JUMBULAYA. A JUMBULAYA? A JUMBULAYA is a word that can be made by taking one letter from 7 or more of the words already on the board. You can skip word lines, but you can't rearrange the letters. Once all 9 rows contain words, JUMBULAYA can be called at any time during the game, whether or not it is your turn. As for the excruciating part: in the early phases of the game, when it's your turn, you have to consider each of the 9 possible word rows - even those you've already claimed. If you can make one of your words longer, you might be able to keep it from getting claimed by someone else. If you can change someone else's word, you can add to your scoring potential (you get points for every word that you've claimed by the end of the game, the longer the word, the more points). Even when it's not your turn, it pays to think ahead as many moves as you can possibly contemplate (albeit highly likely that the most exciting opportunity for you gets claimed by someone else before its your turn again). And then, any time after all 9 rows have been made into words, there's the JUMBULAYA possibility. There's also the possibility that someone might make a 10-letter word, or that someone might claim all 9 words (either event resulting in ending the game), but the JUMBULAYA possibility is more common and far more fun to contemplate. Since anyone can call JUMBULAYA at any time, you must always reckon with the possibility that if you don't claim enough words quickly enough, the game will be over.  As for the fun part, there are so many things for you to think about, so many opportunities for you to surprise even yourself with your uncanny brilliance, that you become totally absorbed in the challenge. At first, it's a little slow. You have to wait for your turn. Even though you can plan for various possibilities, the unforeseen has it's way of happening before it's your turn again. But once all nine words are claimed and the JUMBULAYA possibility is activated, you are thoroughly engaged, all the time, regardless of whose turn it is. Designed by Julie and Karl Archer of Platypus Games, and distributed by the Farkel Factory, Jumbulaya proves itself to be Major FUN, of the excruciating kind - for people who like word games, and like to think hard. The rules are long, but logical, well-written, and not overly complex. Newbies will probably start playing in less than 15 minutes. The tiles are wooden, rounded, and pleasant to touch. Though it can be played by anyone old enough to appreciate Scrabble®, it is such an intense game that we recommend it especially for groups that are roughly the same age and of similar maniacal tendencies. Want more? Watch this. Labels: Thinking Games, Word Games
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
Friday, May 29, 2009
Quads Classic - a puzzle, a strategy game for two, a work of art
 Quads Classic is another beautifully rendered game from Gigamic, compassionately brought to the US by Fundex Games. There are 36 square, wooden tiles, each of which is backed with a magnetic sheet. The board is made of metal and is supported by 4 wooden corner pieces. Printed on the tiles are geometric patterns made of lines and solid shapes. A drawstring bag is included to store tiles between games. One player gets the tiles with solid shapes, the other gets the rest of the tiles. Two tiles (one with concentric squares and a solid border, the other with regular patterns of right angles and a border of broken lines) are the first tiles played. The game consists of placing tiles so that they are adjacent to at least one other tile. Adjacent tiles must match, making it illegal to place a solid edge next to an edge with an open pattern. Players alternate turns. The player making the last legal move wins.  Though you can play a game in as little as 10 minutes, it requires deep, very focused strategic thinking. Our Games Tasters kept on likening it to Othello - probably because it is as visually engaging as it is conceptually challenging. As for learning how to play, it takes about as long as it takes to say "whoever makes the last move wins." There are a couple recommended variations - to add an element of deductive reasoning, players can place their tiles on edge, rather than flat on the table for all to see. To add more challenge, players have to match the patterns on the edges of the board as well. As a puzzle, it's endlessly fascinating. No matter how you place the tiles on the board, you get wonderfully satisfying, geometric patterns of light and dark. You can increase the challenge as much as you want, trying to make evermore symmetrical, board-spanning patterns. And even if you fail, it still looks good. What more could you ask? Quads Classic is what you might call "museum quality" - at least as much a work of art as it is an invitation to play. And here's a little extra reassurance: Gigamic will replace lost parts, for FREE, for the first 10 years of ownership! Labels: Puzzles, Thinking Games
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Carcassonne - a friendly game of strategic connections
 Carcassonne is what you'd call a "friendly game." O, it's competitive, all right. You are most definitely trying to get the most points - prevent others, if you can, from getting theirs. But there's a background of actual cooperation, of genuine, supportive togetherness, which, as much as all the cleverness of the design, the intricacies of strategic implications, the loveliness of illustration, makes this game Major FUN. It's connecting game, played with tiles. You take turns picking from the proverbial tile pile, and placing your tile next to another tile already on the table. You have to connect roads to roads and cities to cities and fields to fields, hoping to complete and occupy entire walled cities, roadways and, as near as possible, fields. Fields are very big. Parts of roads and cities and farms and maybe other things are all found on tiles. Land tiles. 72 of them. Thick cardboard, lovingly illustrated squares, each showing parts of maybe a road, maybe a walled city (looking, uncoincidentally, like the French city of Carcassonne), maybe an entire cloister, all, in all likelihood, including part of a farm. I say "land tiles" because in the basic set you also get the river expansion, which manifests itself as a collection of 12 river tiles. Not land tiles at all. And in other expansion sets, like: and, most recently, you get more tiles and more rules and more interesting wrinkles. When you pick a tile, you are encouraged to ask other players for advice. As more and more tiles get placed, advice can become increasingly helpful. Though you don't actually have to accept the advice, and some advice may be not as well-intended as the advisor claims, this sets the tone of the game, and helps differentiate it from the majority of strategy games. Once you place a tile, you may also elect to place one of your 7 "followers" (wooden, people-like playing pieces) on that piece, claiming your aim to complete something, depending on where you place the piece (on a farm, a city, a road, a cloister). You don't score, of course, until your follower is on a completed cloister, city, or road. In the process of striving for completion (a consummation devoutly to be wished), it is possible that you might have to share victory with some other player who has also played a follower on a connected, but non-adjacent tile. This is not such a bad thing, this sharing, because your points are in no way diminished by the sharing. You get the points. And so does your erstwhile colleague. So it's not what you'd call "zero-sum" nor is it even "everybody-gets-some-of-the-sum." It's something else. It's an everybody gets the whole, undivided sum. Which makes cooperating almost rewarding, and certainly not so bad. The farms are especially interesting. They never get really completed. And they don't get scored until the game is over. But when they do get scored, they can get a surprisingly large score, because farms also get surprisingly large as the game evolves. On the other hand, when you complete a city or a road or a cloister during the game, you get your follower back to lay claim to something else. But since farms are never actually completed, you don't get your follower back, ever. Wrinkle after wrinkle, strategic implication upon strategic implication makes this game interesting, challenging, involving to the very end. And the cooperative, and point-sharing aspects of the game keep it friendly, as in something you are actually playing together. Designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede, Carcassonne is a great game for 2 players, and can be enjoyed by as many as 5. If you don't get into the particulars, you can teach the game and get everybody involved in maybe 5 minutes. Since it's so easy to learn, if you're old enough to play checkers, you're old enough to play, and to have meaningful fun while you're at it. Since there are so many complexities and possible goals, the game appeals to anyone who thinks of herself as a "real gamer." Since there is virtually no set-up - all you need is a flat, empty space - the game is wonderfully portable, and very likely to be something you bring with you wherever there are people with whom you like to play. Labels: Family Games, Thinking Games
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
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
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
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Dvonn
 Dvonn is an abstract strategy game for two players. It takes about 15 minutes to play, and, despite the relatively few rules, about a half-hour to learn. That's because there are a few concepts in the game that are, well, different. But it's well worth the comparatively minor effort. It's an elegant game. Absorbing. Challenging. Inviting. The game begins with players taking turns placing their pleasantly plastic ring-pieces on the board - lovely, thick, clickity plastic ring-pieces. It's highly likely that the first time you play it you'll have no idea why you're placing what, where. As long as the other player you're playing with has as little understanding of the game as you do, then you can think of this part of the game as a pleasant opening ritual. Later, you'll realize that each placement is pretty much a matter of life or death. After all the pieces are positioned and all the spaces filled, the next and far more lethal of the game begins. You can move any of your pieces to cover any adjacent piece. Once you do that, you have a stack of two pieces. If you want to move that piece, you must move the entire stack. And that stack can only move in a straight line, and must move exactly two spaces. As the game progresses, the stacks get higher and higher until it becomes impossible to move them (too many pieces, too few spaces). There are also three red pieces on the board. Every piece has to be connected to one of these pieces. They can be adjacent to the red piece or adjacent to a piece that is adjacent to a red piece, or adjacent to a piece that is adjacent to a piece that is adjacent to....etc. As soon as this adjacency is disturbed, all the pieces that are no longer connected to a red piece are removed from play. This is a satisfyingly dramatic, and potentially distressing (in a good way) moment. You can only move a piece, or a stack of pieces, of your own color. The stack may have may have any piece within it. As long as your color is on top, it's yours. Which means that there could very well be a red piece in that stack. Which also means that if it's your stack, you have the power to disconnect. As you can imagine, though there are relatively few rules, it takes a while to understand to understand all the deliciously intricate implications. Which is why it takes so long to learn them. And once you do, the game takes on a clarity and subtlety that will make you want to play it again and again, as long as you can find someone to play with who knows the game as well as you do. You can accelerate your learning by playing the game online. Designed by Kris Burm, and published by Rio Grande Games, Dvonn is the kind of game that will be especially welcome by people who like to play games like chess. It is one in a series of 6 abstract strategy games in Project Gipf. This one is clearly Major FUN. Labels: Thinking Games
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
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Trango
 Trango is a strategic pattern game, with just enough chance in it to keep it as fun as it is challenging. It's a tile game, played with interlocking triangular tiles. The object is to get points by building high-scoring configurations of your tiles.
The game can be played by up to 4 players of strategic-game-playing-age. It takes less than 10 minutes to learn, which is made easier by having the rules printed on the box for easy review by all players, as well as on an included pamphlet.
A great deal of loving attention has gone into the game. And deservedly so. The game takes about 20 minutes to play, and every minute of it is engaging. The triangular box, the 4 triangular compartments for each of 4 different color tiles, the interlocking triangular tiles - all add a welcome touch to the play experience. The interlocking tiles are especially innovative. Because pieces are not just placed next to each other, but actually joined together, the whole, growing configuration of tiles can be easily moved and repositioned so that each player can look at all sides of the constantly changing board.
The single die is designed so that it is much more likely that you'll throw a one, slightly less likely that you'll throw a two, and the least likely that you'll throw a three. What you throw determines how many tiles you can play on a turn. Because you never know how many tiles you or your opponents will play, there's always hope that your attempt at creating one of the four scoring patterns will succeed. Naturally, the larger the pattern that you attempt to create, the higher the score potential, and the more likely it is that you will be blocked. Playing to reduce someone else's chances to win is as crucial to your success as playing to increase your own.
Recognizing possible configurations requires visual as well as strategic thinking. You need to envision how each tile, in each position, can be used in the creation of a winning pattern. And, once you manage to score, it is: a) more likely that you'll be able to score again by adding to that scoring pattern, and b) equally more likely that you'll be blocked.
Because of the random factor imposed by the die, playing with two players is as engaging as playing with three or four.
All in all, Trango is thoroughly satisfying. It makes you think. It makes you laugh. It is indubitably Major FUN, and, from time to time, surprisingly so. Labels: Keeper, Thinking Games
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Katamino
 Katamino is based on a geometric puzzle called " Pentominoes." "Pentominoes," reports the Association of Teachers of Mathematics, "can be used to develop children’s understanding of the concepts of area and perimeter, transformational geometry including enlargement, congruence and symmetry, nets, volume and classification." Katamino takes the concept further, into a series of games and puzzles that can absorb the spatial reasoning faculties of children as young as three, and adults as old as they want to think they are.  The multi-language instruction booklet includes illustrations for hundreds of puzzles and several challenging games. At its simplest level, it is a building toy, which, like all good building toys, can become very challenging. Then it becomes a puzzle. The it becomes a more and more challenging as players attempt to put more of the pentomino pieces together in larger and larger rectangles. There's a very useful bar that gets placed in different positions on the board to limit the playing area. This same bar is also used to divide the board into two different halves so that two players can race each other to complete a rectangle. Another game variation involves using an 8x8 board (printed on the back of the instruction booklet). Players take turns placing the pentominoes on the board. The last player able to play wins. To make the game easier, or the constructions more complex, the manufacturers include one- and two-unit blocks. The pieces and frame are all made out of wood. Though the colors of the wooden pieces don't precisely match those in the instructions, their shapes are easily discernible and the colors are close enough for players to figure out all the rules and variations as well as the two- and three-dimensional puzzles. Don't be misled by its similarity to other games. Fundex's Katamino is a unique invitation to a lifetime of challenging fun. Labels: Family Games, Puzzles, Thinking Games, Toys
Monday, October 27, 2008
Rhumb Line
 There are oh so many significantly playworthy variations of Tic-Tac-Toe (a.k.a. Naughts and Crosses, a. also k.a. Three-in-a-Row) that one would think it a nigh impossible feat to create a completely different, but similarly significantly playworthy, most definitely Tic-Tac-Toe-like game. Apparently game designer Martin Samuel thought it possible, and his game Rhumb Line is proof of the tastiness of this conceptual pudding. As you know ever so well, Tic-Tac-Toe is about getting 3, or maybe 4, or perhaps even 5 of your marks, or pieces, in a row. But what, wondered Rhumb Line designer Martin Samuel, would it be like if the row were on a circle, like the circle of a compass? Why, you'd not only have rows (radii, one might say), but you'd also have arcs, and even spiral-like configurations. And there in would lie the rub - a visual, perceptual kind of tickly rub, because it's different from the way we look at things when we look at Tic-Tac-Toe. There are a couple more significant departures from everything you thought you knew about Tic-Tac-Toe. When you manage to make your four-in-an-arc, or radius, or spiral, the game doesn't end. You record your score (using the conveniently located score lines), and continue. Thus, as the game continues, the board becomes more complex. More pieces. More possibilities. Then, when all but the last piece has been played, yet another newness transpires - you get to remove any one piece and place it anywhere else on the board - opening up yet other possibilities just when you thought there were no more to be found. And how very fun would that be? Major FUN. Try it for yourself, right now, free, on- actual -line. The game is played on a rubbery fabric mat, lovingly illustrated like the dial of a mariner's treasured compass. The board lies most satisfactorily flat, and yet curls up with ease to line the sides of the of the cylinder that houses the game, the polished pieces, and their velvety drawstring bag. And is now (as of Dec 16, 2009) available for the iPod Touch and iPhone. Labels: Thinking Games
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
A Lesson in Game Design from the creator of Triagonal
 I recently received an email from David Barnes, inventor of the Major FUN award-winning Triagonal, telling me about his new, free compilation of 40 different puzzles to explore with your Triagonal set. With these puzzles, David offers more than a challenging and fascinating resource. He exemplifies a lesson for anyone who is contemplating designing a game: if you hope to make a successful game, you have to create a game that you are in love with. Love? To what else can you attribute the years Dave has spent exploring the depths this one game concept, the almost heroic effort Dave has been putting in, not only in manufacturing and marketing his game concept, but to a deepening exploration of all things Triagonal (in addition to these puzzles, he's developed at least 12 different games to play with your Triagonal set)? Everything about the game reflects his passion and devotion and faith in this one invention of his. Understandably so. Because he has created something significantly playworthy. Because, as with anyone who creates something fun, the only logical next step is to devote much of your life to sharing it with, basically, the known universe. Labels: Thinking Games
Monday, August 04, 2008
miQube
 miQube is a lovely thing. All wood. Colorful. Sculptural. But that doesn't explain how playworthy it turns out to be. Playworthy as in something fascinating, challenging, inviting. Like a puzzle, but like a game, too. Like a toy, even. Playworthy as in something that can be played with in enough different ways to make you want to make up your own. Playworthy as in something closely approaching Major FUN.  There are 13 different pieces, and a die. All but one of the pieces is a different combination of 5 cubes. Each is 6-sided, each has faces of different color, depending on orientation. The other piece is made out of 4 cubes. It also has 6 different colors. As does the die, which is made of one rounded-corner cube. All wood. All solid wood. You don't have to use everything, but you can purportedly fit all 13 pieces into a cube with every face a different color. It's not quite as hard as solving a Rubik's Cube. And the instructions describe 4 different games you can play with your miQube and 1, 2 or even 3 friends. And once you've played all 4 different games and discovered their differences, you can't help thinking about making up a 5th game. Your own. Because of all the different ways you can play with the pieces. Lovely, lovely thing. Most worthy of a position of honor on the family coffee table. Most conducive to several many hours of happily challenged playtime. Labels: Family Games, Puzzles, Thinking Games
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
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
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
On the Dot
 It's a puzzle. It's a game. It's visual. It's logical. It's On the Dot, and it's Major FUN. You get 4 transparent squares, each of which shows a different pattern of colored dots. You also get 64, square puzzle cards, each of which also shows a different pattern of colored dots. The challenge: arrange all 4 transparent squares to match the pattern on the puzzle card. The thing is, each transparent square has 8 possible positions. If they weren't transparent, there'd only be 4. But, see, you can not only turn them clockwise, or counterclockwise, or upside-down or downside-up, you can also turn them over. And then, since you always have to use all 4 transparent squares, there's learning how to hide the wrong-colored dots underneath the right-colored dots. This works, because though the game cards are transparent, the dots aren't. And when you play it competitively (there are 4 sets of transparent squares, so up to 4 people can play), you're all turning and flipping those colored squares and sometimes surprising the heck out of each other and yourselves when the solution actually appears. This is a grown-up kind of puzzle/game, perceptually challenging, logically subtle. You probably need to be at least a fifth-grader before the fun really kicks in. And it's just about the perfect "filler" game for a games party - since people can pick it up and understand what the puzzle is about almost immediately, amaze onlookers with their brilliance, play with it for 5 minutes or an hour, and, when the time is right, invite others into a game of significant tension and even more significant fun. Labels: Funnest for 2008, Keeper, Thinking Games
Set Cubed
 You, of course, know the game Set, from, as a matter of fact, Set Enterprises - the card game where you race to find "sets" of three cards. The cards show 3 different kinds of shapes, in 3 different colors, in 3 different shadings, in 3 different numbers. A set, then, is 3 cards, in which the attributes are the same, or all different. You can read all the rules here. Set has become such a successful game that its puzzles are even carried in the New York Times. Now, however, there's Set Cubed. Instead of cards, there are dice (hence "cubed"), a lot of dice, 42 of them. Instead of racing to be the first to identify a set, you take turns placing the dice on a board, using yours with those that are already on the board to complete a new Set, as defined by the above cited Set-making rules. This turns out to be a very different experience than that of the card game, socially and intellectually. You take turns. On your turn, everyone else is quiet. Nobody's yelling out anything. You can think. You can contemplate, even. Which is good, because there's also more to contemplate. Like, for example, the growing cluster of connected Sets, each die played opening up the possibility for yet another Set to be built. And the bonus squares that add much-relished points if you can only use them. And the purported possibility of creating two Sets at the same time, even. 2-4 players, 8 and older. Major FUN, in deed. Labels: Thinking Games
Monday, April 14, 2008
Uptown
 Uptown, yeah, that's right, we're not talking downtown here. You see, baby, it's like this, it'll fool you, this Uptown game. It's like that, with it's fancy 30's fonts and the sophisticated 30's night people on its cover. It's a game, all right, but it has nothing to do with guns, dames and booze, nah, not at all. See, that's the surprise. It's way more fun than that. Uptown is almost as easy to learn as punching out pieces from a chadless die cut board. Which you do. Five boards worth. Each punch a small pleasure. The game board is a grid, 30's-font-labeled A-I on the right and left, and 1-9 on the top and bottom. The grid creates 9 small grids, each 9x9 cells, in a sudoku-reminiscent manner. The cells in each of the 9 inner-grids all have the same graphic symbol in them. Each player gets 28 square tokens (the ones you had previously so pleasurably detached from each other) - all of the same color. There are 5 different sets, so up to 5 people can play at the same time, or you can play in teams, if you are of such a mind. You take 5 tiles from your facedown tile pile and place them on your tile holder. The tiles have either a number, a letter or a graphic. This determines where you the tile can be placed on the board. But you still have choice, since there are 9 different squares that every tile can occupy - just enough choice to make you have to think. The idea is to put your pieces down so that they are all in one cluster, all touching. Me, I think my cluster number was 4. There are other considerations, o yes there are. For example, there's a wild tile that can go anywhere. And there's the thing about the game ending when everyone has only 4 tiles left on their tileholders, thus giving you the chance to plan for 4 tiles you cannot play - which will probably come as a welcome relief! And there's being able to substitute a tile for one someone else already placed if that tile is by itself or on the end of a cluster. Thus the possibility exists that you might be able to join together two of your clusters or somehow manage to reduce someone else's chances to do the same. And then, for all you tile-taking fiends, there's this tie-breaker rule that gives the win to the player who has captured the fewer of the opponent's tiles at the end of the game. So you play a tile and then pick a tile from your tile pile and wait your turn to play another tile, and, basically, whoever has the fewest clusters at the end of the game, wins. Uptown is fun. Sometimes gentle fun. Sometimes surprisingly not. Kind of sophisticated. Not flapperish nor even flipperish fun. But just that combination of luck and skill to make you think that you won because you were better. Thinking fun. Major FUN. (a new iteration of the game, and a new publisher, led to this updated review 11/9/09)Labels: Family Games, Thinking Games
Friday, February 08, 2008
Chaos
 It looks like some kind of tic-tac-toe game. Nice wooden board. Nice wooden pieces. But it's not tic-tac-toe. Nope, not in the least. It's Chaos, from Mindware - a wonderfully addictive, two-player strategy game - easy to learn, and surprisingly subtle. First thing you have to realize: you're most definitely not trying to get anything in a row. Instead, you're trying to be the first player to get rid of all of your pieces. That takes care of anything you might have thought you already knew about the game. As in tic-tac-toe, the game is played on a 3x3 grid. Each player has 12 pieces. On a turn, you can play on any open space, or on top of any previously played piece. If your move results in the creation of a stack of 4 pieces, you must disassemble that stack, moving each piece in that stack to a horizontally or vertically adjacent stack (or space). This is done in a clockwise order, beginning with the space or stack directly in front of the stack you are disassembling, and proceeding in a clockwise fashion. When you dismantle a stack on any of the eight peripheral spaces, one of the pieces of the stack has no where go. That piece gets eliminated. When a stack of three is adjacent to several stacks of three, your move causes a chain reaction - creating more stacks of four, each of which has to be disassembled, resulting in yet more stacks and yet more pieces to eliminate. If you're not careful, you can easily help your opponent win. Though the game is ostensibly for 2 players, we played it with four, in two teams of two. And there, yet another surprise awaited us. Because of the method of unstacking (always begin with the space or stack directly in front of the stack you are disassembling), where exactly we were each sitting relative to the board took on an added strategic significance. There is nothing chaotic about the game of Chaos. It is a game of pure strategy. But there is a lot of surprise, and, surprisingly often, moments of sheer glee. All-in-all, most clearly Major FUN. Labels: Thinking Games
Monday, November 26, 2007
Geominos
 There's something inherently satisfying when things fit together. And even more satisfying when they fit completely together. Especially if they fit on the right color squares. There's also something inherently pleasing about a game called " Geominos" that comes in a pizza-like box. A sturdy box, mind you. One that amply protects the heavily-laminated board, the 21 durably plastic tiles and the two, one-minute sand timers, and deck of 21 cards. Pleasing because one cannot help be amusingly reminded of a Geominos-sounding pizza store in one's probable neighborhood. The game. Simply put: - Place your Geominos™ game tiles next to tiles already on the board, matching pips (spots) to pips, as in dominos.
- You're assessed points for any pips that are on a light-colored square of the board.
- The game ends when all tiles have been placed on the board.
- The player with the fewest points wins the game.
Gamestaster Marc pithily pointed out that a game that could be completely explained with so few rules demonstrates what the Major Fun seal is all about: clarity, elegance, simplicity. Geominos is game that engages strategic thinking, visual skills, speed, and just enough luck to keep you from hating yourself. Strategic thinking because each tile has a different shape, and each tile has two different sides with a different array of pips, and though you only have to match one section of your tile, there are still more than enough parameters to make you hate both of those nicely made one-minute sand timers. Of course, it depends, somewhat, on which Geomino game you decide to play. Because you see, there are three different games (the one-tile, the five-tile, and the all-tiles), each of which demands a different enough strategy to make it, well, different. Still Geominos, still challenging, but each with a different balance of luck and strategy. In order to start a game, players have to draw tiles, randomly. This is a bit difficult, since all the tiles are on the table. Even if they were in a bag, you'd still be able to more-or-less tell their shape - just in case you're looking for something in particular. So, you use that special deck of cards I told you about - ensuring that the selection of tiles is truly random. If you're new to the game, you'll need more time to ponder. So each game can be played in 1- to 3-minute rounds. In a 1-minute round, you just use one timer. In a 2, you use both. In 3, you restart the first one as soon as the second one is done. Simple, effective, and can be used to add a certain, shall we say, flare of implied pressure. The 5-tile game is significantly challenging, but also the best game to start with - it gives you a chance to experience all the properties of the tiles and board and the various significances thereof. The 1-tile game has a stronger element of luck. The All-tile game can lead to psycho-aerobic brain-strain. Recommended for 2-4 players of at least checker-playing age, Geominos takes about 15 minutes to learn and from 30-60 minutes to play. Geominos has been found by our independent gang of Game Tasters to be Major FUN. Labels: Thinking Games
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Hexa-Trex
 A few months ago, I wrote about some wonderful puzzles from Think Fun. I received the following comment from Bogusia Gierus. She wrote: "I happened upon your blog recently, and had fun reading it and enjoyed doing some of the puzzles you suggested. I wanted to introduce you to a puzzle I have developed. It's called: Hexa-Trex. It's a math puzzle, but doesn't require extreme knowledge of mathematics to have fun with it - only basic arithmetic is essential. The object of the puzzle is to find an pathway through all the hexagonal tiles that creates a valid math equation. It's a simple concept, but is challenging and fun for the 'puzzle' type of person. If you wish, check out the puzzles on my website, I try to post a new puzzle each day." A few months later, she sent me a copy of her new book of Hexa-Trex puzzles. And it seemed pretty clear to me that it was time to let you know about this - about a teacher who has such a love for kids and learning and, most significantly, such a deep appreciation for the fun, the inherent fun that learning is all about. And about these gifts: the free, online treasury of Hexa-Trex puzzles, and this most puzzling, innovative little book of good, hard, fun - with numbers, even. Labels: Thinking Games
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Amuse Amaze
 Amuse Amaze is a word game that is not quite like any word game you've ever played. It'll remind you maybe of Boggle, maybe of Scrabble, but it's something else, entirely. There's a board. Actually, there are 18 boards which you assemble in different number and configuration, depending on how many people want to play (2-6). There are 88 plastic letter tiles in their own zip-lock, black baggie. Most of these tiles go onto the board in the empty blue squares. A few of these tiles go to each player, to be placed, oddly enough, face-up in front of the player. And there's a cute little question-mark-shaped playing piece for each player. Wait - I'm still explaining. One board is called the "Start" board. You can tell which board this is because in the center of it, writ large, is the word "Start." Taking a closer look at this board, you'll also notice that there are blue squares (the squares that get seeded with letter tiles), there are squares with letters printed on them. One square is dark brown, with a white letter K in the center. And, here and there, are squares with hedges on them. There are also gardener cards. You get one of them. And cards of different color that correspond to each of the Target boards, about which you currently know nothing. That about sums it up. Now to the fun part. Your goal is to move your piece from the Start square on the Start card to the Target Square on each of the Target boards. You can tell they're Target boards because they include one or several letters in a different color - a color that matches those "cards of a different color" I told you about. You move your piece by making a word, letter-by-letter, from vertically, horizontally or diagonally adjacent squares (hence the Boggle-likeness). Now, as long as it is a real word, you really don't care about what word you make - because you don't get any points for making it. What you do get is a little closer to a Target square. O, sure, making a longer word is good, as is using one of the white letters, because this gives you an extra turn. But your verbal abilities don't count nearly as much as getting to each of the Target squares. I have to say this a couple times, see, because that's one of the things that makes this word game so very different. As to all those letter tiles... If you use a letter tile in making a word, you get to pick it up. This is a good thing to do, because you can also lay letter tiles down as you go, placing them on top of whatever letter is printed on the board, hence making words where no words were there to be made. Assembled, the whole board looks like a maze. There are even uncrossable maze-like hedges here and there, mostly where'd you least want them to be. You have a Gardener Card. Only one. And you can use that, only once, to cut through a hedge. And, to further complicate things, other players are always getting in each other's way, which can be strategically astute and significantly frustrating. Yet, despite all these strange new things, the game is surprisingly easy to understand, and even more surprisingly challenging. It is strategically deep, and significantly fun. Major, one might say, FUN. Labels: Thinking Games, Word Games
Go Mental
 Which of these doesn't belong? guessing
challenge
knowledge
steal
Actually, if you're playing Go Mental from HL Games, they all belong. So that was a trick question, is what it was. Go Mental is a trivia game. Not to trivialize it in any way. Because, despite what you think you know about trivia games, this one's unique. And it comes with 1000 questions. That's one thousand. On 500 cards. And that's a lot of cards. But it's what's on the cards, of course, that really counts. Let me give you a better example. Not a trick question. A real one. From the actual game its veritable self. I begin: ?
Octopus
Squid
Scorpion
Spider
So, which of those things, as they frequently ask on Sesame Street, is not like the others? Did you say Octopus? Nope. Squid is the answer. Why? Because the other three have eight legs or tentacles. And the squid has, how many? That's right - ten. Harder than you thought. And maybe you learned something, even. The game is a race, like so many games of the trivia-type. And there's a race-track-like board. With 30 spaces. So you definitely get that race-like feeling - that sense of getting ahead and falling behind.  Then there are the Challenge Cards. Suppose you get a question, and you're not sure what the answer is. Or better yet, you get a question and you're pretty sure that a certain someone does not know the answer. So, you play a Challenge Card. If you're right about the other person, and he doesn't know the answer, he has to move backwards. Four spaces! O, the humanity! On the other hand, if he does in fact know the answer, he gets to move forward four spaces. Ha ha on you! O, and the Steal Cards. Similar to the Challenge Cards in their card-likeness. But markedly different in drama and overall glee-potential. See, when it's someone else's turn, and you think you know the answer, and this someone else has not yet said anything answer-like, you may slap down one of your Steal cards, shout "Steal," and get to answer the question yourself. Now, when you Steal, you have to get both parts of the question right. That is, you have to not only identify which of the four items doesn't belong, but you also have to explain why. If you are correct on both counts, you get to move four spaces closer to the goal. Wrong? About either part? Guess what? The Steal and Challenge cards are brilliant innovations in themselves, adding significantly to the excitement of the game, keeping everyone involved regardless of whose turn it is. In theory, a game should last about a half-hour. The manufacturers even include a one-minute sand timer to use when people need the hint. There are enough pieces (little plastic brains, no less), to keep 6 players going, mentally speaking. You can also play in teams, which makes everything so much more party-like. Best thing about playing in teams, you don't have to take your own ignorance so personally. Should you be so motivated and wish to include those of the younger persuasion (as young as 8), HL Games offers a supplemental deck of "Fundamental" questions, making it possible for the kids to Go Mental, so to speak, with or without you. O, the fun of it all! Labels: Party Games, Thinking Games, Word Games
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Mother Sheep
DAVID.jpg) 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
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
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
10 Days in Asia
 I began my world travels years ago, where I spent 10 thrill-filled days in Africa, and I recall, even now, remarking at how remarkable it all was, how much fun we were having learning about where Africa has all its countries. Even though that wasn't really the point of the game, as much as the delicious dialog between luck and logic that this game, like all good card games, seems to be all about.
It's a card game, really - a tile game, even, for 2-4 players, maybe 9 to certainly adult. Not a board game at all even though you spend a lot of time looking at the board. You never really play on the board. You play on card holders, two of them, actually, one numbered 1-5, the other 6-10. You pick a card and place it into any slot in your card holder. And then another, and then other. Planning, all the while, to place each card so that when all ten are assembled onto your card holders, they will be in the right order, each country card leading to another, geographically adjacent country card, unless it's a boat card and the boat card is the same color as the ocean you share with that country card, and even, after that, if you get another country card of a country that happens to be on the same ocean, then you can probably take the train to that country, which is, in turn, a non-stop plane-ride away from Vladivostok, as the saying goes.
But, of course, it never goes that way, and you wind up having to discard and pick and replace and let me tell you the planning, the heights and clarity of logic one can manifest, only to be felled by something as stupid as luck, argh, it's enough to make you have fun. Sizable fun. Major FUN.
Anyhow, that was then. And that was Africa. There's been USA and Europe. And now there's Asia. And what does that mean? It means it's a whole new game, one that you know how to play, but with O so many, many Asian countries. And the board, isn't it subtly, and everso welcomely larger? And what about trains? Isn't this the first of the 10 Day series to have trains? But it's another 10 Days game, all right. You're on a trek as fun as your Africa ever was, or USA or Europe, even, but in yet another part of the world called "Asia," with so many Asian-sounding countries to learn about, and with such a fun way to do it, while you're having so much fun playing, thanks to the cleverly globe-spanning people who made these trips possible. Labels: Senior-Worthy, Thinking Games
Monday, September 24, 2007
TransAmerica
 TransAmerica is the first "track" game I've played. Good thing. We could actually understand the rules in about maybe 5 minutes. Its rules, but not exactly what they mean... You play on a simplified map of the US. Nice, big board. There are cities. There are cards - one for each city on the board. Nice, little cards. Pretty. In 5 different colors. Then everybody takes one of each. And that way, you get your cities, scattered across the country, coast-to-veritable-coast. You want to be the first to have all of your cities connected. You build tracks using little wooden sticks. Lots of little wooden sticks. Not fun for the feeble-fingered. You place them along a network of lines that connect hither to yon. What's deliciously hard to remember, at first, is that you're not building your own separate railroad. So as the game continues, and you connect more tracks, you all take advantage of the connections that everyone else has already made. Kinda if you wait long enough, someone else might just as easily make the connection you need. And therein the strategic subtleties are at play. The game doesn't take long to play, either. And you can honestly play it with 2 as well as with 3 as well as with 4,5, or 6. And it almost doesn't matter if someone joins in after the game has started, because, like I said: we're all on the same track. Labels: Thinking Games
Friday, August 24, 2007
Quartile
 Quartile is a beautifully executed tile game for 2-6 players. According to SimplyFun, it is suitable for kids as young as 5. It will make you think of dominoes. Which is a good start. There are 49 tiles. Wooden tiles. In a wooden box. Just as lovely as a lovely set of dominoes. Square tiles. Not like dominoes at all. Each tile has a number in the center, ranging from 2 to 14. The number is surrounded on 4 sides by domino-like pips, ranging from 1 to 7. To play a tile, you must match the pip-count of all adjacent tiles. The value of the tile is determined by the number in the center. The score for a play is that number, multiplied by the number of matching adjacent tiles. So, of you play an 8, and it is adjacent to 2 other tiles, and both sides match, you get 16 points.  The possibility of getting a higher score by matching more than one adjacent tile makes the game especially suited to family play. The younger player can derive satisfaction from making a simple match. The older players can find significant challenge by trying to make the highest scoring play possible (matching all 4 sides). The artful distribution and configuration of tiles invites mathematically-oriented players to get even more engaged. There's only one tile worth 2 points, and all 4 sides have only one pip. There's also only one tile worth 14 points, and all 4 of its sides have 7 pips. There are 7 tiles worth 8 points. These tiles have anywhere from 1 to 7 pips on their edges. Just enough complexity so that those who want to take the game seriously can find serious things to think about. Just enough simplicity to invite some significant glee. Yes, Quartile is made in China. And yes, again, it has been carefully examined for lead and other bad things and as been found most consumer-worthy. Labels: Family Games, Thinking Games
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Q-BA-MAZE
 Q-BA-MAZE is a marble run construction toy, in the tradition of Boyongolo, the HABA Ball set, the Quercetti Marble Run, the Skyrail Marble Run Roller Coaster, and, of course, Cuboro. In the tradition of, and yet, unique, and uniquely worthy of our collective attention. Actually, all these toys, and many more like them, are worthy of our collective attention. Building a marble run engages both creative and scientific reasoning. Every design must ultimately "work," not only aesthetically, but also mechanically. No matter how good it looks, if the ball doesn't go where you think it should, or if the run isn't as long as you hope it should be, you're just going to have to build it differently. Now, back to Q-BA-MAZE. I promise not to use the word "amazing" more than once - after this. First, allow me to use the word "cube." As in Cuboro, the basic building block is a, well, block. Unlike Cuboro, there are only three types of blocks, they are made out of a durable polycarbonate, translucently acrylic-like plastic, and they fit together in most satisfyingly interlocking configurations. They can slide into each other along their sides, they can be stacked on to each other, they can be built up and out into cantileverishly cunning constructs. They also work. One of the three, the one that opens on both ends, works in a most curiously delightful manner. It is a switch, of sorts. With no moving parts. But when a ball drops into it, the ball will often hesitate before traveling left or right, sometimes hesitate a most tantalizingly long time, as if deliberating. And this turns out to be a particularly delicious deliberation, adding just that extra touch of surprise, just that extra change in rhythm that makes the whole, multi-colored construct that much more surprising, that much more engaging. Q-BA-MAZE comes with a bunch of steel balls - not because they're easy to lose, and definitely not because they're easy to swallow (hence, the small child advisory), but because the more balls you drop into it, the more complex the pattern of the fall, the more fun it is to watch - a visual equivalent of the difference between melody and symphony. Watch the video, read the blog, construct your own myriad of delights, or build any of the configurations you find online, like this one, if you happen to have purchased the 50 count set (36 blocks and 14 balls). You'll be amazed. Labels: Thinking Games, Toys
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Lost Cities
 Lost Cities, published by Rio Grande Games, is an elegant two-player card game - easy to learn, a few, simple rules, and yet chock full of subtle strategic considerations. It's one of the games that helped establish Reiner Knizia's reputation as a grand master of game design. The deck (well-illustrated, oversized "expedition" cards) consists of 5 suits, each suit a different color. Cards in a suit are numbered from 2-10. There are 15 "investment" cards, 3 for each color. Placing the board between you, you build any of 5 different expeditions - cards of the same color, in ascending order. On your turn, you can add a card to any of your expeditions, start a new expedition, or discard onto the corresponding space on the board. Each expedition you start costs you 20 points (a significant strategic wrinkle of the "don't start anything you can't finish" ilk). Each card you play on a destination adds that amount of points (2 to 10) to the total for that expedition. Since you must play the cards in ascending order, if the first card you play is a 10, that becomes your total earnings for that expedition, so you lose 10 points. Here we have yet another wrinkle - the lower ranking cards being strategically more valuable in the beginning of the game as you build up towards the higher. Unless you've played an investment card first. Which doubles your loss or gain. Since there are three investment cards for every expedition, if you play all three investment cards first, you stand a chance to increase your gain or loss by a multiple of four. On the other hand, if you manage to collect all 9 cards (2-10), and you had the foresight and fortune to also get all three investment cards, you could, conceivably, earn more than 250 points for a single expedition (less the 20 for investment costs). Note the term "conceivably." Though luck plays a definite role, each turn is corrugated with strategic wrinkles. The first few turns are the most provoking, thought-wise. As the game continues, the choices are fewer, and the pace quickens - adding a lovely sense of semi-breathless anticipation as the game draws to its inevitable conclusion. The round ends as soon as you run out of cards from the draw pile. You can delay that inevitability by picking cards from the discard piles that accumulate on the board. But only for so long. Thus, yet another wrinkle, strategically-speaking. A full game takes three rounds. And the whole thing can be played in under a half-hour. You know how in all other card games you pick first and then throw? Well, in Lost Cities you do the opposite. And therein, believe it or not, lies a significant portion of the delight and the agony of the game. (Agony in the best sense, as in the Greek, agon - "the conflict on which a literary work turns.") There you are, with a white 5 on the board, a 7 and 10 in your hand. You don't want to play the 10 because that will be the end of that expedition. So you throw the 7. And you pick. And there's that 6. O, the sheer injustice of it all! And the Major FUN-itude! There is definitely a strong element of luck in this game. But not the fault-mitigating kind of luck that you sometimes some desperately hope for. You lose, it's probably because you could have played better. Thus it is recommended for the more mature player, who can better deal with the onus of having to think while in the steely grip of the ineffabilities of fate - that puts you at fifth grade, at least. The game has been around for a while (originally published by Kosmos in 1999). You can even play online. Labels: Thinking Games
Monday, August 13, 2007
Gemlok
 Gemlok, from Pywacket Games is a board game for 2-4 players combining chance and strategy in some rather delicious ways. The object of the game is to score points by occupying high value spaces on the board. To do so, you move your playing pieces according to movement patterns determined by the throw of a unique pair of dice. You begin the game by positioning your 8 pawns on 8 of the 14 spaces along one of the edges of the board. Printed on the board is a large array of gems of different value. The gems in the center of the board are of the highest value, thus attracting much of the action of the game. If you manage to land on a space occupied by another pawn (your own, your partner's, or your opponent's), you can "bump" that pawn up to three squares in any direction. Though you might feel it more important to bump your opponent off of a high-scoring gem-square, you would be wise to consider the possibility of opportunities for you to bump one of your pawns on to a higher-scoring space. The word "Gemlok" is printed on the sixth side on each of the dice. This allows you to make the placement of any one of your pawns permanent, which, with all that bumping going on, often turns out to be highly desirable. Gemlok has relatively few rules, and takes maybe a half-hour to play. But it is an intensely absorbing half-hour, one that you'll probably want to repeat several times before game time ends. Though dice are used, Gemlok is much more a game of strategy than chance. Recommended for 2-4 children as young as 7 and grown-ups who can stand losing to them, Gemlok should prove as successful as a family game as it is worthy of somewhat serious adult consideration. Labels: Family Games, Thinking Games
Friday, July 20, 2007
Keesdrow
 If you like word games, especially those of the word-seek, Boggle-type, you should most seriously and assuredly consider immediately purchasing Pywacket's surprisingly well-made, designed, and documented Keesdrow. (Keesdrow, as in word-seek, only spelled sdrawkcab). Surprisingly well. First, of course, the game. Because even though the quality of the pieces and the cleverness of the design and the thoroughness of the documentation are all exemplary, if the game itself weren't fun and challenging and unique, the rest wouldn't matter. The board (made by a random arrangement of 64 tiles, double-sided tiles, each of which has 4 letters on it) presents an array of 16x16 letters. Not to, shall we say, "boggle" your mind, but, do you recall how many letters there are in the original, Parker Brothers version of Boggle? Did you say 16? And did we say that Keesdrow has 16 times 16 letters? Why, yes, we did. So, one might easily conclude that Keesdrow is Boggle overkill. Words are created by connecting letters that are horizontally, vertically or diagonally adjacent - as would be familiar to any Boggle player. Each time a letter is used, it is marked with a peg. When a pegged letter is used (a letter is used for the second time) to make a word, that peg is replaced with a different peg of a different color (yellow), and the letter's score-value is doubled. When that letter is used a third (and last) time, a red peg us used, and the letter's score is tripled. This makes every letter of increasing strategic value - so the temptation is to build from other people's words, focusing on one small area of the board. And thus, quite brilliantly, keeping the players from being totally overwhelmed by all the possibilities. There's also a unique double letter rule, where you can use the same letter twice in a row or in the word, doubling back, as it were, if you need, and of course adding to your score as you make your green pegs yellow, and your yellow, red. And, to encourage players to widen their use of the board as the game continues, letters marked with a red peg are "dead" and can't be used again. All of this just about guarantees that you will be taken completely by surprise by each other's brilliance - all of you looking at the same cluster of letters and suddenly someone finding a word that was everso blatantly there and yet completely invisible to you. Hence, the Majorness of the FUN. Finally, there's a two-minute timer, just to keep things in perspective. In the deluxe version, the letter tiles are made of wood. For five dollars less, you can get them made out of plastic. Which maybe less appealing aesthetically-speaking, but perhaps even more durable. Everything else, deluxe or regular version, is the same. A plastic box, divided into three compartments, stocked with three different colored pegs. A folding board that acts as a frame, and a set of carefully illustrated, full-color instructions completes the package. Recommended for 2 to 6 players, 8 to adult. Though if you have more than 4 players, more than childlike patience will be required. It's also helpful if players are relatively equally skilled, or as much imbued with compassion as with the love of wordly challenge. Labels: Thinking Games, Word Games
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Snatch
 Snatch, based on the Victorian word game of anagrams, is a very portable and nicely executed word game from US Games Systems, Inc.. Anagrams, under any name, is a word game you should know about. It is elegantly simple, with very few rules, and yet can become remarkably absorbing, intense, and challenging for even the best of word game players. The look and feel of the tiles is an important contribution to an overall excellent game, hence, our most wholehearted endorsement of Snatch. You begin with a pool of letter tiles, all turned face down. On your turn, you turn over any tile. Then it's the next player's turn. As soon as any player sees a word that can be made from the exposed tiles, that player calls the word out and wins the tiles for herself. She places the tiles in front of her, face-up, so that all players can see her word. The game continues, tiles turned over one per turn, so to speak. Now here is the excruciating part - if any player can add some exposed tiles to one of your words so as to change it into a different word, that player can claim your tiles. So: 1) you never really own anything until the very end of the game, and, 2) as the game progresses, there are more and more snatch-worthy words to contemplate. Especially those long words. So Snatch, even though it is not in itself a new game, is clearly Major FUN. It is reasonably priced, attractive, well-executed, the plastic tiles are smooth to the touch and slide easily on tablecloth or tabletop as you rearrange them (which you do often) - all the things you want in a good game. Though it can be played by as many players as are interested, we've found that it's best in a smallish group (2-4) of people who are equally adept, word-wise, and equally competitive, reaction-time-wise. Labels: Party Games, Thinking Games, Word Games
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Ka-Ching: The Buy the Numbers Card Game
 What you need to know about Gamewright's two-player card game Ka-Ching is that it's mercifully short. You can play it in 15 minutes. That's 15 surprisingly intense minutes of essentially cutthroat competition. Which makes the shortness of it all so merciful. What you also need to know, is that it's surprisingly fun, absorbing, easy to learn, and well-designed. There are two decks of cards: the money cards and the numbers cards. You use the money cards to buy the numbers cards. There are five different cards of number cards, seven of each kind, numbered 2-6 (there are two 2's). First thing you do, after you've shuffled the number cards, is lay the number cards out in 5 rows of 7. After that, you give each player $20 worth of money cards (which come in denominations of $1, $2, $5, and $10). There are two wild cards. You give one to each player. On your turn you may do one of two things: you may buy any of the five cards that are currently exposed (the bottom card of each column), or you may sell any two cards that are of the same kind. The price for buying a card is the number that appears on the card. The amount of money you get for selling a pair of cards is the multiple of the numbers on those two cards. Thus, you could conceivably buy a blue card for $5 and another blue card for $6, and then sell it for $30 (5x6), for a tidy profit of $22. That's about it, rule-wise. Except for your one wild card. Which doubles the value of whatever card you want to sell it with. Sounds simple, no? Except for the thinking part. Because, see, once you realize that if you buy, say, the purple 3, it makes it possible for your beloved opponent to buy the green 6 right above it. So maybe you should buy the blue 2 instead, given that the next card in that column is merely an orange 3. On the other hand, the blue 2 is only worth $2, and at best can only double the value of another blue card, and the card right above the green 6 is a purple 6, which would give you $18 - so your opponent might not really want to buy the green 6, even though it is a 6, because she doesn't want you to have that purple one. Know what I mean? Designed by Klaus Palesch and Horst-Rainer Rösner, Ka-Ching, despite how easy it is to learn, and how short of a game it may be, is a game you need to take seriously. It is a remarkably well-designed and -executed game of pure strategy, and sometimes delicious agony. As for those money cards - game designers, take note. Using card stock for money, despite the fact that paper has far more money-like verisimilitude, makes for money that is much easier to handle and much more fun to play with. Labels: Thinking Games
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
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Highrise Dominoes
 You know how every now and then you come across this beautifully packaged set of dominoes, sometimes in a tin, even, and the dominoes are in deed very nice - hefty, colorful, smooth - and sometimes there's even some kind of lovely plastic thing that sits in the center of the table or some place, and keeps score or turns around or even makes noise - and yet it's still dominoes? You know what I mean. Dominoes, in a nice package, but it feels like dominoes, and it looks like dominoes, and it plays just like dominoes. And you can't help feeling just a little disappointed, just a little like you were hoping maybe for a really different game, something new, something that maybe used dominoes, but was more interesting, more challenging, more, well, different? Despair no more, my playful friend. For Highrise Dominoes is in deed a wonderfully different game. And the base that is included in the lovely tin is really functional, really central to the game. The object is to build a tower of dominoes. First, a basement is built - 8 dominoes placed, face-up, in the bottom of the turntable base. From then on, players take turn building on to the base, the rule being that the domino has to match the numbers it rests on. And yes, you can lay your domino so that it rests on two different dominoes. And once that domino is laid, you can lay another domino on top of that. And the higher the level, the higher the score. It's a completely different experience of dominoes. There's so much to look at. Which is why you're so happy that the turntable turns. There are clear plastic blocks that are used when the dominoes you want to match are on two different levels. Which is fine, unless the dominoes are on two different levels that are more than one level apart. And then comes the joyous agony of having to maybe (gasp) draw another domino. There are also wild dominoes, there's a double, with both halves wild. And there are others with only one wild half. But, boy, do you get to love those wild ones! Seeing as they are often the only ones that you can play. Which you really want to do. Because the first player to use all her tiles can get many, many points. Labels: Family Games, Thinking Games
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Stack revisited
 I am certain you recall that Stack received a Major Fun Award a little over 4 years ago. In fact, it was a recipient of several awards: the Party Games award, the Thinking Games award, the much-touted Keeper award, and even, oddly enough, it was found most Senior-Worthy. And you probably even recall why. I, on the other hand, have been exploring the game in greater depth, especially recently as I work more and more with various groups of seniors hereabouts. And what I have been exploring, actually, is the, shall we say, "Super Stack" set - two different sets of the Stack game (the deluxe, jumbo, of course), each set having different color dice, thereby enabling me to play a game with 8 people. The large dice that come with the deluxe version prove to be especially comforting for senior eyes and hands. Easy to read, even at a distance, enjoyable to hold because of their greater heft, and easier to stack because of their larger size. Having enough for eight people makes the game ideal for building a sense of community and friendship. Because the group is larger, people don't can play at a safe distance from each other (psychologically safe), but because they're all sharing the same set of dice, they feel connected. If we need to, we can easily divide into smaller, more intimate groups. But having all those dice means that each player has twice as many options to consider. On the one hand, it makes the beginning of the game that much easier and more inviting. On the other, it makes the endgame that much more dramatic. Stacks get built, options constantly get fewer and fewer, the need to play strategically gets more and more vivid. Stack, even with only 4 colors, has never disappointed us as a game for almost all ages. But having twice as many dice turns out to be more than twice as flexible, twice as interesting, for at least twice as many people. Labels: Family Games, Keeper, Party Games, Senior-Worthy, Thinking Games
Monday, May 07, 2007
Qwirkle
 Qwirkle is an elegant tile game, easy to learn and understand, visually inviting, and increasingly challenging as the game progresses.
There are 108 thick, wooden tiles - thick enough to stand on end, like dominoes. Each tile is imprinted with one of six shapes in one of six colors. Players take turns, adding to an increasingly complex grid of tiles, the rule being that to place a tile it must be either of the same color or shape as the adjacent tiles. You can place several tiles, as long as they are in one line.
Each player starts out with 6 tiles, and replenishes her hand after each play. The game continues until all 108 tiles have been played.
Your score for the turn depends on the number of tiles in the rows or columns adjacent to the tiles you've just placed. So, if one of your tiles brings the number of tiles in a row to, say, 4, and the number of tiles in a column to, for example, 3, you'd score 7 points for that one tile. If your tile is the sixth in a row or column of tiles of the same shape or color, you'd score twice as many points (12). As more tiles are placed, there are more choices, so the search for the high scoring play becomes more and more complex.
The challenge is both visual and logical, clear enough to engage a school-age child, and complex enough to invite serious, adult competition. Most importantly, though it is a competitive game, the competition is gentle and inviting. You win more by your ability to find the best possible placement for your pieces than you do by trying to keep your opponent from scoring.
In fact, so satisfying was it to get a high score in any single turn was that we really didn't need to keep a cumulative score. We could admire each other's genius (and luck), while more or less competing to see if one of our plays could score even higher. Labels: Family Games, Keeper, Thinking Games
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Lonpos 303
 Lonpos 303. Lonpos, because that's the name of the inventor. 303 because that's how many different puzzles there are. Puzzles of two different varieties: the rectangular, 2-dimensional variety, and the 3-D pyramid puzzles. There are 12 pieces, each made of a cluster of small balls, each a different color and shape. The shapes are pentomino-like in their variety (different configurations of clusters of 3, 4 and 5 units), so their mathematical properties are noteworthy - notably to mathematicians. All the pieces fit snugly in the case, which also most neatly serves to house the instruction booklets. I was concerned, Defender of the Playful that I am, that perhaps the 3-D puzzles would be too, shall we say, challenging. After all, how do you effectively convey a 3-D puzzle in a 2-D booklet? So I tried those first. In fact, I tried the first one first. The illustration very clearly and painstakingly showed me how to place the first 11 pieces. All I had to do was figure out how to place the 12th. I must say that I was experiencing something akin to sensual delight as I built the puzzle - each piece fitting so satisfyingly snugly onto the board or onto other pieces. And, since there was only one piece left to place, and since it so clearly fit in only one possible position, I was able to experience the almost immediate reward of that final click, when everything falls together, and the full glory of pyramid-building manifests itself in multi-colored, opalescence. Then I tried the next puzzle. Hmmm. A bit more difficult to figure out how to follow the instructions, to envision the proper piece when all you can see is the particular slice of it that appears on each level. And then the next. And another intriguing hmmm. And as I solved each puzzle, I felt I was being taught, carefully, playfully, invitingly, a bit more about the pentomatically puzzling properties of pyramid-building. And it wasn't really too difficult. I mean it could get difficult. There were many puzzles in the booklet o' puzzles. And they got progressively more and more, well, challenging. But I could select whatever challenge I was ready for. And I said unto myself, behold, this is fun. And I'm learning things. More than fun, actually. Major fun, even. Lonpos 303 is very much like Lonpos 101, except Lonpos 101 only has 101 puzzles. And Lonpos 101 is very much like Kanoodle, which is similarly very much like Level Up. But there is only one Lonpos 303. And once you start playing with it, you'll be grateful for every one of the 202 additional challenges that await. After which you might want to contemplate the significance of knowing that there are actually 360,984 unique rectangle puzzles, and 2,582 similarly unique pyramids puzzles that you could potentially create with your 12 little Lonpos pieces. Labels: Puzzles, Thinking Games
Thursday, April 05, 2007
More Puzzling Fun from ThinkFun
 Before we talk about Pete's Pike and some of the other delightfully new puzzle/games from ThinkFun, answer me this? Have you ever tried River Crossing? If not, stop reading now, click on the ThinkFun, answer me this? Have you ever tried River Crossing link, and try it right now, on-actual-line. How about Rush Hour? Tipover? Go ahead. Click away. You can play all three. It is to sing the puzzle electric. Of course, you'd be missing the feel of the puzzle/games themselves, the well-made, cleverly designed, intelligently portable, box-throw-out-able packaging of it all. But you'd get a good sense of what these puzzle/games are all about - how they involve moving pieces on a board, pieces with different properties, boards with different layouts. And how each layout is really a new puzzle. And how the puzzles range in difficulty. And, most importantly, from a major fun perspective, how they invite kibitzing. The different levels of challenge allow you to challenge yourself as much or as little as you want to. Go ahead, start with the the first card. Be a beginner. Enjoy your competence. Feeling feisty. Skip a card or two. Try something intermediate. Because you can challenge yourself as much or as little as you want, the puzzle/games are especially fun - you never feel yourself overwhelmed or bored (unless you want to be). Then there's the kibitz-attraction - because the puzzles are visually attractive, and because what you're trying to do is generally easy to explain (see, I'm trying to get this goat (Pete) to the top of the mountain (OK, the middle of the board), and I can move Pete up or down or across from where he is until he's right next to one of his Goats. And I can move the Goats the same way.) So, if you're feeling social, and you want that wonderfully collaborative experience of thinking together with somebody, well, then, you've got a game fun enough to play at a party. And if you're not feeling so social, you can just sit on the sofa, all by yourself, and still have significant fun. So the very design of these ThinkFun puzzles is the very kind of design that lends itself to Major FUN-ness. And when you have a bunch of these puzzles together (in addition to Pete's Pike, we had HotSpot, Cover Your Tracks and Treasure Quest - all new, each fun), you can amaze yourself and friends at how darn clever these puzzle/games really are, how each, similar in all the good ways, is so different, in similarly good ways. Take Hot Spot. Very, very similar to Pete's Pike, you might say, except with "Bots." Only, Bots can jump over each other. In fact, a Bot can jump over two Bots, if it feels so compelled. Not diagonally, of course. Very different. You have to think a different way. Not like your Pike's Pete thinking, oh no. Not at all. And then there's Treasure Quest and Cover your Tracks. Not quite as self-storing, perhaps, but with a significantly adequate drawstring storage bag, for those who seek portability and boxlessness. But very different from Hot Spot or Pete's Pike. Cover Your Tracks, with its four, large, asymmetrical pieces that fit on the board in only certain ways, and its slide-under puzzle cards, very, very different from Treasure Quest, with its sliding gate and four kinds of square tokens (you gotta love the Gold Masks that you push/side along the board), and your statuesque, token-pushing Hero - and yet, in a way, remarkably similar to all the other ThinkFun puzzle/games. Similarly well-made, similarly ingenious, similarly fun, differently puzzling. Labels: Puzzles, Thinking Games
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
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
Friday, December 08, 2006
Knights of Charlemagne
 Knights of Charlemagne, yet another game by the amazingly prolific Reiner Knizia, is what one might call a Major FUN Award-winning strategic card game. One might call it that, because: 1) it feels very much like a strategy game, played between 2-4 players, where people hope to outbid each other for high-scoring resources. B) it is played with cards - one deck of well-made, easily shuffled playing cards, and another deck of pleasingly thick, cardboard resource cards. And III) it received a Major FUN Thinking Games award. There are 50 "Knights" playing cards - five suits (colors), each suit consisting of two sets of cards numbered from 1 to 5. Then there are 21 of those pleasingly thick resource tiles. Five of them are called "Manors," five "Cities," 10 more "Treasures," and one "bonus" tile. The tiles are arranged in columns. Some tiles are worth more than others. To win a tile, you have to have invested more cards than your opponent's. There are complications, o, there are complications. There are five different colors of Knight cards, don't you know, and the City Tiles are won by the player who has bid more knights of the same color, whereas the Manor cards the player who has invested more knights of the same rank. And yet more complications relating to the bonus card. Not complex complications, mind you, but complications of the intrigue-generating kind. The game doesn't take long to teach (especially if the teacher has already played it), and less than a half hour to play - a very focused, strategically dense, and yet refreshingly light-hearted half hour. Labels: Thinking Games
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
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Flip-Tac-Toe
 Flip-Tac-Toe is a 3-in-a-row game on a 4x4 board for 2-4 players. And that's not all. It's a Tic-Tac-Toe game that breaks almost every convention of Tic-Tac-Toe, and yet, when all is said and done, is still definitely Tic-Tac-Toe. You get 12 big bright foam chips apiece. You put one of your pieces anywhere on the board. Or you move a piece anywhere on the board. Yes, that's right, I said move "a" piece, as in any piece, as in one of yours or one of anyone else's. Anywhere. Even on top of another piece (unless there are already 4 pieces on it). And if there are stacks of pieces, you can also turn a stack over, on your turn, so to speak. A stacking strategy, they explain, is to try to get your color on top and on bottom of a stack, like a sandwich - so that it always stays the same color even when flipped. Very interesting. And very different when you play with 3 or 4 people, stack-sandwich-making-strategy-wise. Easy to learn, because it's tic-tac-toe. Takes a while to master, because it's so much more. Labels: Thinking Games
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Spectrangle
 Spectrangle is a lovely, and happily intense game of luck and srategy - with just enough complexity to present a challenge, and just enough chance to keep the playing field level, as it were, so to speak, even if adults are playing too. Speaking of playing fields, the game is played on one of a very few, if not the only, triangular game board. A very nice, molded triangular game board, by the way, that has a molded triangular lid that snaps down to store all the pieces. And the pieces themselves are colorful and of appreciable heft. And you know how much we love heft. Players draw 4 numbered triangular tiles ("trangs") from a bag, and then take turns placing tiles on the board so that adjacent colors match. Certain spaces on the board score twice or three-times the value of the tile that occupies them. This significantly adds to the strategic interest of the game - weighing the value of holding on to a high-scoring tile, avoiding giving the opponent access to the high-score positions on the board, and, since score is determined by multiplying the number on a trang by the number of matching sides, times the value of the space it is on, looking for the highest scoring play becomes a truly challenging task. Labels: Thinking Games
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
Sudoku Challenge
 Sudoku Challenge is prolific game designer Reiner Knizia's answer to the widely distributed (and I mean widely), and often excessively-challenging Sudoku puzzle. And it turns out to be a surprisingly fun answer, even for people who don't know or especially like Sudoku. After the board (a traditional 9x9 Sudoku matrix) is seeded (in something similar to the traditional Sudoku manner), players take turns drawing and placing number tiles on the Sudoku grid. Following the Sudoku puzzle rule, you can't put a tile in the same row or column or region (traditional Sudoku matrices are divided, tic-tac-toe-like, into 9 regions) where the same tile has already been played. Your score (and hence the challenge) is determined by how many tiles are in the same row, column and region. As you can so clearly imagine, the potential to score higher on each turn, or to run out of legal moves, increases as the available spaces become fewer and fewer. We found the game less demanding, and more fun than a Sudoku puzzle. Maybe because it's a lot easier to play with movable tiles than with pen or pencil. Maybe because it's more fun to play together than alone. Speaking of together, if you have school age kids, turn the board over. It's Zoodoku, a children's version of the game using a set of animal tiles. More visually demanding, but a smaller matrix, with fewer intersections, and gentler rules. Labels: Thinking Games
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Ringgz
 Ringgz is a strategy game for two, three or four players. And yes, it is as strategically interesting with three as it is with two or four. The object of the game is to occupy the most territory. You do this by putting a ring (wooden, of course) around the chosen point of territory. There are different size rings - three of different diameters, and one, solid, cylindrical core. You can put a larger ring around a smaller ring, or a smaller ring inside a larger ring. You can put a ring around any point of territory orthogonally adjacent to any other place you have put your ring. The player who gains a territory is the one who has the majority of rings around a point. Since there are a total of four concentric layers, you can easily tie. On the other hand, if yours is the only ring, at the end of the game, that point of territory is also yours. And then there are the large solid discs that you can play - not to gain territory, but to open up the opportunity (so you can claim a vertically or horizontally adjacent point next turn). Rife, rife I say with strategic implications, each all subtle and delicious, revealing themselves at different times during the game, and still other times when you play again. It's not the kind of game that makes you laugh, unless you think it's funny when you do stupid things. Which you will, and it is. The pieces are made of wood. The board is made of wood. It's a game well-worth the care with which it was designed and produced. Labels: Thinking Games
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Cover Up
 Cover-up is a tic-tac-toe-like game, for all the best reasons: easy to learn, quick to play, and different enough from tic-tac-toe to make you have to think. It's made of heavy plastic, also for all the best reasons: the pieces feel good in your hand, the playing board is 3-dimensional, and the base of the board serves as a storage compartment for the pieces. It's a two-player game, like its forebearers. Each player gets 12 discs: three large, four medium, and five small. The board is a 5x5 grid, but each space actually has three different levels. The lowest level accommodates the smallest pieces, the middle the medium, and the top level the largest. Players take turns placing discs in available spaces. Or moving the large discs. Once a smaller disc has been played, it remains in position until the end of the game. Four-in-a-row wins. Not four-in-a-row-on-the-same-level. Just four-in-a-row. Of the same color. Now, as you move around your big guys ever so freely, covering what lies beneath with abandon (there only three of these pieces, so you need the smaller ones also in order to win), you do have to be alert to what you may uncover in the process - like one of your opponent's pieces, which happens, now that you notice, to be exactly the fourth piece in a row, which means, alas, the victory is hers. So it's strategy, and just enough memory to make you have to pay closer attention, and it's easy to learn, and it's fast, and it's well-made - everything you'd want in a majorly fun thinking game. Labels: Senior-Worthy, Thinking Games
Monday, July 24, 2006
Zig Zag
 Zig Zag is a strategy game for two players, though we played it with two teams. The goal of the game is to be the first to line up 4 pegs in a row. The pegs, however, can only be moved along certain "tracks." Tracks that each player has laid down, one turn at a time, patiently, o so patiently. And that's exactly what they were, our kids' games tasting group, playing Zig Zag: patient. Thoughtful. Focused. And often taken completely by surprise. Zig Zag is a well-made and well-conceived strategy game that can be played in as little as 5 minutes or as much as a half hour. The sturdy plastic bridge pieces - a longer one to reach diagonally adjacent holes, and a shorter one for the orthagonally similarly adjacent and also holes - fit smoothly into slots alongside each raised peg hole. Storage trays help keep the pieces sorted. Any invitation for people to think together, kids, adults, is something you almost can't afford to turn down. Especially if it's fun. And challenging. And just complex enough to take people by surprise. And short enough so no one takes it seriously, this winning or losing thing, so everyone can focus, instead, on the fascination, the delight of the game. Labels: Senior-Worthy, Thinking Games
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
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Isolate
 Isolate is an elegant little strategy game from Educational Insights (makers of the award-winning games Rumis, Blokus, and Space Faces) for 2 or 4 players, from first grade to adult. It can take from 20 minutes to an hour for a game. The two-player version is as good as the four, and the strategy different enough to make it worth trying both. There are 4 tiles (housed more or less conveniently in the inside of the board) of each of 4 different colors. Each player selects a color. Players then take turns adding tiles to the board - the only rule being that a new tile must be adjacent to one already played. After all the tiles are placed, the object becomes to move columns of tiles so as to isolate your color tile from other tiles on the board. As soon as your color tile is isolated, it is removed from the board, and added to your wins collection. The game continues, each player sliding a column of adjacent tiles. If more than one, or a cluster of tiles is isolated from the main group, all those tiles are returned to their owners. This adds to the strategic depth of the game as you have to constantly be on the lookout to make sure that your move doesn't inadvertently help other players (unless you find yourself in the thrall of self-defeating magnanimity). The perceptual challenge is often as deep as the strategic - just being able to envision the consequences of a move requires you to perceive the entire array of tiles, in each permutation, as each possible move is considered. Just the kind of task that children are often better able to accomplish than adults - making the game of interest to the whole family. All in all, we found Isolate to be well-made, challenging and inviting. Labels: Senior-Worthy, Thinking Games
Monday, January 16, 2006
Heximania
 Heximania is a game that invites the whole family to a fun half-hour of strategic word play. Strategic word play. Family. These are ideas normally don't go together, but Heximania is simple enough for a first-grader to enjoy playing, and interesting enough to produce parental glee. The game includes a collection of haxagonal letter tiles (thick, smooth, colorful) in a drawstring bag (well-made, with a locking closure), a hexagonal board (raised, 4x4x4x4x4x4 haxagonal grid, integrated turning base) 4 tile holders (plastic, ample), and a sand timer. The letter "A" is placed in the center of the board. Players each take 5 tiles from the tile bag and then take turns, adding one more letter to the board. The new letter must be adjacent to the last letter played. And it must make a word. When a letter is played, that player writes down all the words she can think of that begin with her letter, and can be formed from adjacent tiles. As the game progresses, a single tile placement can result in a surprising number of words. So surprising is the number of possible words that the player can easily miss one or several - especially with the pressure of having to complete the turn before the sand timer runs out. This adds significantly to the fun of it all, because the rest of the players can add to their score if they can find any words that were missed. It reminds you of several good word games. Boggle®, Scrabble®, especially. But it's different. It's hexagonal, for one thing. For another, you build one letter at a time. For another, it's especially fun for kids, and just long enough to grab the collective attention span of the entire family. Labels: Thinking Games, Word Games
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Deflexion - The Laser Game
 Deflexion is a chess-like, two-player, arguably abstract strategy game - with lasers! Each player gets four different kinds of pieces, one of which is the "pharaoh." Two of the pieces have mirrors on them. The object: position the pieces so that when you fire your laser, it winds up hitting the non-mirrored side of one of your opponent's pieces. If you hit a Pharaoh piece, the game is over. The pieces need to be set up in their specified starting positions. It took a while to do this, because the whole board (and not just the starting rows, as in chess or checkers) is used. And, as a taste of strategic implications yet to come, the rules describe two different set-ups, each chock-full of its own subtle significances. Meaning, as Shakespeare might have said if he had his own Deflexion game, that there are more things in lasers and mirrors than are dreampt of in our philosophies.... The moment we installed the (included) batteries and discovered that yes, there are actually lasers, and they are, yes, most definitely bright enough, and that, yes, they do bounce off the mirrors in a most classically laserlike manner - we were hooked. O, we were trepidatiously hooked, all right. What if the game doesn't really play as good as it looks? What if the laser light can't really be seen when it hits a piece? What if it's too complex? After all, there are some strange, chess-like rules about how certain pieces can move. And, o, we so much wanted the game to be as good as it looked! I mean, with lasers and mirrors and everything! And, upon reflection, so to speak, we found it fun. We found it very fun. Major, as a matter of fact, FUN. And we were sorely happy. Labels: Thinking Games
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
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Columns - a game of strategic stacking
 Columns is another beautifully crafted game "PIN" from Out-of-the-Box's Masterpiece collection. The two-player "stacking game" involves building on a matrix of 3x4 wooden pins. Each player has a collection of wooden pieces: "L"-shaped, rectangular and square "blockers" and disk-shaped "roundels." There are 12 roundels, and they are the only pieces that can score, and they only score when they are placed on top of a column. Columns are built in five layers. A roundel can not be placed on top of an opponent's blocker. Rule-wise, that's pretty much it. Well, you also can't put two of the same kind of blockers on top of each other. And you can't leave any gaps. Other than that, the game is one of careful anticipation as you try to build a foundation that will be topped by your roundels and not your opponent's. At first, it's almost impossible to understand the implications of the different kinds of pieces. You place something in the matrix. You build. You are surprised. As you play repeatedly you get a growing appreciation for the strategic value of each different piece. If you are evenly matched, the subtleties continue to reveal themselves game after game. And you still get surprised. For people who like 3-D puzzles and games of strategy, Major FUN, in deed. Labels: Senior-Worthy, Thinking Games
Monday, August 01, 2005
Loot - an elegantly strategic card game
 Loot turns out to be a surprisingly elegant, fast-paced, and quite strategic card game for 2-5 players (or up to 8 players in playing in teams). Designed by the deservedly successful and astonishingly prolific designer of board and card games, Reiner Knizia, Loot is a competition between pirate captains, trying to capture the most valuable merchant ships. There are three kinds of cards in the deck of 78: 25, innocent-looking merchant ships carrying various amounts of gold; 48, menacing, skull-and-crossbone-wielding pirate ships; four totally outrageous pirates, and one equally outrageous-looking Admiral pirate. Each player begins the game with six cards. On your turn, you may play a merchant ship and hope that it doesn't get attacked during that round (because, if it doesn't, all the gold it is carrying is yours!). You may also play a pirate ship, in the hopes that your pirate ship (and any other pirate ships of the same color played in subsequent rounds) have the highest total value. You may even play a pirate or admiral card, if you really, really want a particular merchant ship. Because the rounds can continue as long as other pirates are fighting over a merchant ship, it is very easy, and tempting, to continue a battle, just for the pure piratical joys of it all. Which, of course, is an invitation to an early and conceptually wet grave. Especially if the ship you're fighting over isn't worth it. Yes, yes, there's luck, but there are also the strategic delights of luring other players into battle until they all but exhaust their resources. It's one of the few card games I know that recommend team play, in essence, sharing two hands while conspiring against other similarly two-handed teams. This can add some delicious moments of shared gloating, and helps to ameliorate the agony of defeat at the hands of the luckier. All in all, Major FUN. Labels: Thinking Games
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Da Vinci's Challenge
 To you, you lovers of strategy games, you appreciators of perceptual challenges, we present, with great pleasure, the latest Major FUN Award-winner: DaVinci's Challenge. Each player has a collection of 72 pieces. There are two kinds of pieces: ovals (or lenses), and triangles (each side curving inwards). The circular board looks like something a playful geometer might have made with here compass - all curving lines, circles intersecting circles, hexagons and six-branched star shapes. The object of the game is to place your pieces so they form one of nine different patterns - the more complex patterns scoring higher because they are more difficult to form and easier to block. One of the chief delights of the game occurs when you complete multiple patterns with a single move - placing one of your triangular pieces in a space surrounded by three of your lens-shaped pieces, for example, could complete a gem (for 5 points, or, if it's adjacent to another triangle, it could also complete an hourglass (for an additional 10 points). No matter how lost one gets in the strategic implications of it all, your eye is continually delighted by the visual challenge that comes from trying perceive potential patterns that you or your opponent might complete. Score sheets turn out to be exceptionally useful for novices, helping them remember all of the different patterns. Major FUN, in deed. Labels: Thinking Games
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Palabra
 Palabra is a word game that is easily as deep as Scrabble®, more competitive, more challenging, and yet requires only a deck of cards. 120 cards, actually. Cards with letters on them. And colors. And some even with special symbols. And some more special than that. It's not just a word game. It's also rummy-like. So, if you really can't find a word, but if it just so happens that you can make a "straight" with, say, the letters J, K, and L, well, go for it. Since a J is worth 9 points and a K 6 and an L 2, you got 17 points right there. And if they are all the same color, you'd double your score. And if some of the cards have stars on them, you might double or triple the score again! The competitive part, and I mean, really competitive, comes with the "shaving" rule. On your turn, if you have cards that match those the person before you just played, you can use them to take points off his score and add them to yours. Kind of a delicious moment in the annals of legally mean things to do in the name of fun. I know. It sounds just too complex to be fun. So many other things to think about that it could take away the joys of word-making. And yet, it turns out at least as interesting for the word game lover as Scrabble, with all the fun of a really good card game. The deck has been recently refreshed - the cards are a bit thicker and the color key on the side of the cards has a different shape for each color - a great help for people who have difficulty telling colors apart. If you have the old set, it's still worth getting a newer version, because with 2 decks (yes, 240 cards!) you can play with up to 12 people. Major FUN? You bet! Hmmm. Betting. As one might do in poker. Hmmmmm. And hmmmm again. Given the 28 variations currently described on the remarkably thorough and generous Palabra website (which includes resources like the inestimably valuable 2- and 3-letter word list, vowelless words, and Q-words not followed by a U), given, in particular, variations 13 (called "All Poker") and 24 ("Texas Hold 'em), poker, most definitely. And there's, for further example, a more Scrabble-like crosswords (variation 12), of course. And, should you enjoy playing with yourself, so to speak, a significantly amusing solitaire (variation 21), even. Labels: Party Games, Thinking Games, Word Games
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
TIPOVER
 TIPOVER is only the second puzzle/game to receive a Major FUN Award. The first was also an ingenious, 3-D puzzle/game called " River Crossing." Oddly enough, both games involve 3-D pieces, which are set up in various positions, and in both games, the goal is to figure out how to reposition the pieces so that a cute little plastic man can travel across them from start to finish. It strains the credulity to think this is mere coincidence, but both games come with a set of 40 different "challenge cards," which give the puzzled one a range of challenges, from beginner, through intermediate, to downright genius. And, if you can accept the possibility that such serendipity could actually exist, you can even play TIPOVER online, in much the same manner that you can play River Crossing onlinearly. Much the same, but not quite as satisfactorily, alas, because, you see (well, actually, you can't quite see), the TIPOVER pieces are far more 3-D, ranging in height from 2-4, shall we say, "crates." Well, there is a one-crate-high piece, but that is the final destination in each challenge. The rest are positioned at their challenge-card-assigned places on the plastic grid, and don't get moved, but are actually and eponymously, "tipped over" to a vertically or horizontally adjacent position. And therein lies the difference, the uniqueness, the intrigue of this fascinating puzzle/game, challenging the visual imagination as much as it challenges reason. The similarities in package, design and basic concept can be more or less sufficiently explained by the observation that both puzzle/games are produced by ThinkFun. However, the ingenuity, uniqueness and sheer Major FUN Award-worthiness of both of these puzzle/games goes far beyond similarities in packaging and presentation. Each is an invitation to hours of left-brain fascination, interspersed with moments of sheer right-brained glee. Each invites solitairy contemplation and collaborative kibbitzing. Each a welcome addition to the Major FUN Hall of Fame. Labels: Puzzles, Thinking Games
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Heximoes
 Heximoes are, as the name so clearly implies, hexagonal dominoes. 132 hexagonal dominoes, to be precise. Compared to your basic rectangular, 28-in-a-set, two-number dominoes, Heximoes are at least three times more complex. So the question is, are they, as the manufacturer suggests, six times more fun? Though it is difficult to quantify fun, it is not at all difficult to experience the fun of Heximoes. They are every bit as fascinating as dominoes (see this for more about the many wonders of dominoes). And, because they are hexagons and each number is a different color, the games you can play with them tend to make much more appealing, geometric patterns. The challenge of placing tiles is also far more fascinating, since you have to match each adjacent tile (which can be as many as six!). The manufacturer, Educational Insights, describes three different games, and a solitaire version, each of which is as inviting and challenging as any domino game you can think of. If you know dominoes, you'll understand how to play Heximoes almost immediately. On the other hand, the experience of playing with six-sided tiles is so clearly unique, that any comparison to traditional dominoes does little justice to the experience of play. Heximoes are made of cardboard, so they can't compete with the look and feel of a traditional, ivory, wood or plastic game of dominoes. But they certainly can compete with the play value. All in all, Heximoes are Major FUN. Labels: Thinking Games
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Gobblet, Jr.
 It was more than two years ago when a game called " Gobblet" became the first strategy game to get a Major FUN Award. Today, it's Gobblet, Jr., a simpler version of Gobblet where the goal is to get three-, instead of four-in-a-row. What makes the game so attractive is: 1) it's based on tic-tac-toe - so, if you know tic-tac-toe, you'll be able to understand how to play, pretty much immediately; and 2) it's way more interesting than tic-tac-toe. Way. Each player gets two sets of nesting cylinders. Players take turns placing any of their cylinders down anywhere on the board. And yes, if you have a larger cylinder, you can even put it on top of your opponent's cylinder. Which, you probably already see, has enough strategic implications to make playing the game utterly fascinating. OK. Maybe not as utterly as Gobblet, uh, Sr., where you have three sets of nesting cylinders and are playing on a 4x4 board on an even more woody box, but definitely utterly enough. Though it's called "Gobblet, Jr," it's not getting a "Kids" award, or even a "Family" award, but a full-fledged, adult-worthy, Thinking games award, just like its bigger brother. See, at the last Tasting, I didn't tell anyone about the other Gobblet. I showed them Gobblet, Jr., and I said, look, even though it looks like a kids' game, play around with it as if it were a big person's game, deserving of the best of your very adult selves. And they did. And it was. Even in its simpler, 3x3 version. A game to be taken most maturely. Even if kids like it, too. Labels: Thinking Games
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
Bang!
 They call it " Bang!" - this award-winning card game from Italy. The first time we tried it, we called it "quits." You know the rule we have at Game Tastings - the one about a game taking maybe 15 minutes to learn. Well, we gave it a half hour, that first time. Who'd think that a card game, in that small of a package, could be that complicated? The second time we tried it we gave it 45 minutes - an exacerbatingly long time to learn a game. There are so many special cards, each with its special function, that we were especially frustrated. Before the next Tasting, Tammy took the time to find the best versions or the rules she could, and sent them out to all of us so that we could prepare. And, as you so well know, preparing for a Tasting is simply not done. The third time, we devoted the last half of the Tasting to playing Bang! We were outside. And it was getting colder. But we were determined to play it through. And we did. Even though it got colder and still colder. And, yes, somebody shot the sheriff, and they didn't kill the deputy. And we finally actually played the game. And we had fun. I mean, we were beyond Tasting. We had established, beyond doubt, that the rules are just too complicated, and can take veritable hours to learn. Which is simply not your typically Major FUN-awardable scenario. And yet, fun was definitely being had. Our conclusion to date: if you like role-playing games, you'll definitely get a Bang! out of this one. Now Tammy's at work on creating visual aids because she's convinced she can make it easier for us to play next time. Even though, according to Tasting protocol, that next time might not be for a couple months. I'm having a sneaking suspicion. Protocol or not, we'll be playing it again this coming Sunday. Labels: Thinking Games
Monday, February 28, 2005
Siege Stones
 Siege Stones is a lovingly crafted strategy game for 2-4 players. Elegant and subtle, the game is easy to learn and the strategy deep enough to make it worth playing again and again. It is difficult not to be impressed by the quality of the game components - beautiful glass markers add sparkling color to the wooden board and playing pieces. After a few turns, however, it quickly becomes apparent that the game is every bit as attractive as its components. The object of the game is to lay claim to 4 of the 9 wooden "towers." To do so, you must surround a tower with pieces of your color. However, proximity to a tower weakens the value of your pieces. Thus, while you're engaged in a battle for a tower, another tower placed near your pieces weakens your claim. This makes the game strategically subtle - enough to give it a high replay value. Variations, including Siege Stones Charge, further extend the replay value, and invite players to create yet more versions of this challenging, subtle, and fast-paced game. Siege Stones is one of the few strategy games that is as fun for 3 players as it is for 2 or 4. That discovery was the proverbial tipping point for us - making Siege Stones a most definitely Major FUN Award-worthy strategy game. Labels: Senior-Worthy, Thinking Games
Monday, January 24, 2005
Rumis
 Rumis is a genuinely deep strategy game for 2-4 players brought to you by Educational Insights. "Educational Insights," you probably ask, in potentially reverse discrimination, "how could an educational game, recommended for kids first grade and older, be of any interest to my mature self?" (A painfully parallel question to teachers who voice similar concerns about games like Apples to Apples and Ten Days in the USA). Perhaps it will somewhat clarify issues when you take into account that these are the same people who brought us the very Major FUN-award winning Blokus. Though the game can be played by 2-4 players, it works best with 4. Each player uses a set of 11 3-dimensional blocks. There's one shape made of two cubes, two shapes out of 3 cubes, and the remaining shapes are each permutations of 4 cubes. Players alternate turns laying setting blocks on the board (you can use any of 4 different boards), the rule being that, after the first round, each piece (called "stone") must be placed so that it touches at least one face of any stone of your color that you already played. You do have to stay within the perimeter of the board, and you can't stack stones above the height limitation (which differs, depending on which board you use.  The base is a turntable, which becomes increasingly appreciated as more and more pieces are placed, and the configuration becomes more complicated. When the game ends, you look at the structure from top down, scoring a point for every face of your color that you can see. The concept is strategically deep enough to keep even veteran gamers challenged throughout the game. At the Tasting, we had two different teams of players who wanted to try it, and each team wanted to play it again and again with different boards. The only complaint was that maybe a little too much dexterity is required for precise piece placement. This could have something to do with the age of the players and the amount of coffee consumed. Labels: Senior-Worthy, Thinking Games
Monday, December 06, 2004
Sashay
 Sashay is yet another of those beautifully crafted wooden games from the Masterpiece collection, available through Out of the Box games. It's a chess-like strategy game, with a bit of Go, a hint of Stratego, and a touch of Battleship. In addition to the strategic intricacies of the game, there's just enough opportunity for cunning and guile and sheer dumb luck to make the game as fun as it is deep.
There are two kinds of pieces. The "Dancers of Disguise" move vertically or horizontally, like the rook in chess. The "Masters of Masquerade" move like bishops, only they can change directions many times in one move, sashaying, as it were, across the board. They can also swap positions with an adjacent piece. Pieces are captured by being surrounded.
Each of the Dancers of Disguise has a hole in its side - just deep enough to accommodate a tiny wooden rod. At the beginning of the game, players set up a special board to prevent each other from seeing which Dancer is carrying the tiny rod. Pieces are set up in whatever manner players choose, and then, the Battleship-like dividing board is removed.
All you have to do to win is to get your Dancer to carry its rod to the other end of the board.
There are a couple of niggles one needs to be aware of. You have to remember to position your dancers so that the holes are facing away from your opponent. In the heat of the game, this may take more discipline than one is willing to exercise. And those tiny rods are so very easy to lose (luckily, the manufacturer includes spares - even more luckily, you can use a piece of aluminum foil or even a toothpick when you run out).
There is ample, and often quite delicious opportunity to get psychological on your opponent by advancing a rodless dancer or two, while keeping the rodded one shielded from play. On the other hand, the more shielded the Dancer, the easier it is to surround it and remove it from play.
All in all, the movement of the pieces is so interesting, the method of capture so subtle, and the opportunity for subterfuge so compelling that any niggle remains safely niggled for the duration. Labels: Thinking Games
Sunday, September 26, 2004
Blokus Beauteous
 We knew the first time we played this, it was love at first sight. The rules are easy to learn....so easy that you don't expect it to play as well as it does. There are complex decisions to make, figuring what your opponents might do and how to counter them and stake out some territory for yourself. I must admit - since receiving my copy of Blokus (Educational Insights) I have brought it to every gaming event I've attended and nobody's had a bad thing to say about it. My interest was first peaked when rather than setting the board up squarely (with a side facing each player) we set it up to look like a diamond (with a corner near each of the four players). Even this little touch alerted us to something special. Blokus is a beautiful game full of excellent, dramatic situations. Blokus simplus: The board, a 20X20 square. Each of 4 players (best) gets 21 pieces (blue, red, yellow, green). These pieces represent every combination of 1-5 blocks, touching orthogonally (I love this word! Never knew about it until I started playing serious boardgames...it's the [compliment] of diagonally). Your goal, starting in your corner, is to play all your pieces to the board and try to block your opponents from doing the same. And the only legal way to play a piece is diagonally touching another of your pieces. It may NOT touch any pieces of the same color along a side (here's that word again... "orthogonally".) Your play may, however, put your piece in contact with your opponent's pieces any way at all. Note: Don't try picturing what I've just written. Look at this:  And the pieces are two-sided, so you can turn one over if it fits your needs better that way. Players now take turns playing until no one can make a legal play. Everyone then counts up the total 'area' of their remaining tiles (I have one five tile, a four, and a three...my score is 12; you have a three and a four for 7.) Because of its short play-time, Blokus fits easily into a gaming session. The entire game takes only 20 or so minutes. Heck. Many of the games we play take longer than that to read the rules! But, if you're anything like the folks I've played it with, you'll want to play it again. If you start to feel you are a blockus expertus, there's a website where an obliging 'bot will kickus your behindus. Our only concern was being slightly mislead about the age range of the game. The Blokus folks indicate that it's "suitable for 5 and up." We played with a very bright 7 1/2 year-old who couldn't quite grasp the game's strategy We say Major FUN for 8 and up!" Blokus Keepus! Marc Gilutin Gamestaster Labels: Senior-Worthy, Thinking Games
Saturday, May 22, 2004
I Love Paris......
 Imagine yourself as the "keeper of the trains", as opposed to yours truly, the " keeper of the games". You are a contractor, building the Paris Metro in 1900 and the city fathers have promised to pay you by the mile (ding!). So you want your trip lines to be as long as possible and your rivals' lines to be short. There are 32 stations placed at the edges of a suitably dark (after all, this is the subway) 8x8 board, each with a departure track and one for arrivals. Players' color-coded trains are placed at pre-assigned points around the board. They then take turns placing complex, multi-track tiles according to a couple of simple rules.  When a line is completed, its owner receives a point for every tile it crossed along the way (which freqently involves crossing the same tile more than once). If a trip ends at one of the stations in the center of the board, points received are doubled. When all tiles have been played, you tally up and c'est tout, monsieur! Metro is a great game. Virtually everyone I've played it with has enjoyed themselves. It's very easy to get into, (your newbie friends will take to it quickly) but there are enough interesting decisions to keep the most sophisticated gamer involved. And there's the nasty factor. One of my friends calls it 'hosing your neighbor'! The best way to be sure your opponents don't make long trips is to give them short ones. So every line that's completed for 2 or 3 or 4 points, is one less that might go for a big score. And someone could complete one line near the end of the game to score as much as 40 points ( so watch out for that guy in last place). Metro is designed by Dirk Henn (Atlantic Star, Alhambra) and was just released in the U.S. by the boys at Uberplay. The game plays well for up to 6 , though we preferred 2, 3, or 4-handed to minimize down time and allow you to plan a bit. However, all is not perfect in the Paris underground. Several funsters complained that they found themselves, effectively, out of the game (all of their trips had ended) but having to still place tiles, giving their opponents more points along the way. That and the scoring track being a bit impractical leave Metro just short of "Major" but definitely Fun! Labels: Thinking Games
Saturday, March 27, 2004
Wordigo
 Wordigo really took us by surprise. We see a word-board game and we think: "maybe fun for the guy playing, but agony for the people who are waiting their turns." So we conclude "Word-board game = not really Major FUN material." Then we notice the different boards and four complete sets of tiles. This leads us to conclude that maybe all four of us can play simultaneously. No turn-waiting. Immediate gratification, verbally-playfully speaking. Except that there are six of us. So we play in three teams. And the game just takes off. Sure, we are confused a little by the different boards in the set, and the funny arrows on the tiles, but we start anyway, racing against each other and the timer, using and drawing tiles and discarding, trying to fill our boards up with words. And then, when the time is reluctantly up, we figure out the scoring, which really gets interesting, strategic-implication-wise. The next round (we hardly ever play more than one round during a "game tasting," but this game was just too darn delicious), we are much more score-conscious so we get strategic and discover we really don't have enough time anyway. We also decide to start with the second board, only to discover that it is actually more challenging than the first. The game comes with four sets of letter tiles with pouches, four sets of four different game boards (two boards with a different design on each side), the first and probably only seven-minute sand timer in the world, and a score pad. The tiles look remarkably similar to those letter-with-number tiles you see in scoring letter games, but they have arrows on the vowels. The boards are similar to kids' crossword puzzles, but without the clues. The game can be played simultaneously with up to four players or with teams, which we think is even more fun. And you can even invite the kids to play or compensate for those with different verbal skills. The boards are of varying levels of difficulty. Those who want to can use the easier boards or start with more tiles or maybe recycle their discarded tiles. Wordigo is the only word game I know of that allows you to use a dictionary while you're playing. Of course, looking something up in a dictionary while the sand is inexorably streaming your time away is perhaps not such a useful option. Unless you're playing in pairs. Which we just happened to be. And even then, we were all too wrapped in the rapture of it all to use anything other than our rapidly muddling minds. For those of us who enjoyextended moments of time-free deliberation, the game is still entertaining without timers. Players just continue until all the boards have been filled. Labels: Family Games, Keeper, Party Games, Thinking Games, Word Games
Friday, March 26, 2004
Wildwords
 On first glance, it could be easily mistaken for that highly popular word/board game, SCRA*LE. And, in truth, the similarities are close enough to make any SCRA*LE player to feel right at home. Of course, it's the differences that make it interesting - differences that are different enough to make it a completely new, and disturbingly compelling game. Here is one play, illustrating the various possibilities inherent in a single turn of WildWords. You will note the SCRA*LE-like board. On closer inspection, you will note that despite the apparent SCRA*LE-likeness, there are differences - like the squares that say "Lose 20 on Play." Omigosh, you mean there are squares you don't want to cover? And the surprisingly many squares that say "Turn to Wild." Which brings me to what may be the most clearly unSCRA*LE-like concept of "Wild" you'll ever encounter. A wild tile, indicated either by the * or by it's turned-overness, can be any string of consecutive letters. Not just any one letter. But any one or many letters. This change is radical. It's what makes WildWords into a unique word/board game. Uniquely profound. Uniquely challenging. Uniquely fun. Then there's the whole thing about challenging another player - you know, when you think someone's spelling a word that isn't in the dictionary. That has also been most discerningly enwilded. First of all, with the possibility of a single wild tile standing for maybe seven letters, it's a lot harder to know whether or not there's a challengable word. Which makes it all the more inviting to bluff. Which makes it all the more necessary to challenge. But in WildWords, when one player challenges another, all the other players (SCRA*BLElikely, WildWords can be played by 2-4 players), must also agree or disagree. In either event, if they are wrong, they each lose 20 points. Harsh. In a beautiful kind of way. Also, I gotta tell you, the tile holders are probably the best tile holders ever to hold a game tile. Smooth. Cool. Hefty. With wood-protectors, even. And the easy-to-read tiles are all packaged in a plastic bag inside a drawstring bag. With six extra tiles, just in case. In sum, WildWords is the newest to receive the coveted Major FUN Award. Labels: Keeper, Senior-Worthy, Thinking Games, Word Games
10 Days in the USA, or 15 maybe
 The astute reader will all but immediately note that 10 Days in the USA is highly likely to be found Major FUN Award-worthy, given it's obvious similarity to the already Major FUN Awarded 10 Days in Africa. What is of such noteworthy note, however, about the 10 Days in Africa and 10 Days in the USA similarity is that 10 Days in the USA is not actually identical to 10 Days in Africa. Of course, you may nod in your uninformed glibness, it is not actually identical to 1 0 Days in Africa. It's in the USA! But that, you see, is not the only difference. True, there are significant enough strategic differences necessitated by the immediately apparent differences in political geographies. But that is not all. There is, for example, the rule pertaining to Hawaii and Alaska and the color of the airports therein. So noteworthy are the differences between these two sister games, that, for the first time in the history of the Major FUN Award, we find our royal selves recommending to those who have the therewithall: go ye and purchase either or both, 10 Days in Africa and 10 Days in the USA, because each is just different enough for each to be, separately, and together, found trans-globally Major FUN Award-worthy. As to the 15 Day in Either Africa or USA variation, that, actually, applies to both, when only two people are playing, and gets our "Why Didn't We Think of That Ourselves" award. This just in from an unamed source, purported to be the president and lead games designer of Out of the Box Publishing, distributors of the 10 Days series: "10 Days in Europe, 10 Days in Asia, and 10 Days in the Middle East are all in the works, and each will have unique features. Hint: a mode of water transportation." Who can count the strategically geographic joys awaiting us? Labels: Senior-Worthy, Thinking Games
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Basari
 Basari is a racing/bidding/bartering/strategy game for three, or better, four players. It is definitely one of your more complex games, involving, as it does: racing, bidding, bartering and strategizing. But it is not one of your more difficult games - and that's what makes it so noteworthy. That it's acutally possible for anyone over, say, ten to do all those things at more or less the same time. Not only possible, but fun. The race is for score. In fact, the score board is a race track. The bidding and bartering is for jewels or points. You start with a showdown, all players choosing between one of three possible things they're interested in bidding and bartering for: position, points or jewels. If you're the only one choosing a particular action, well, then, you go right ahead and do it. If someone else has made the same choice, prepare to barter. You need jewels in order to barter. Which is precisely why you might not be the only one choosing jewels. Which makes it more of a gamble. Especially if three or more people also chose jewels. On the other hand, it doesn't matter how many jewels you have if you don't win. Which is determined by how many points you have. Which is determined by your position on the inner race track. Which determines what everyone is bidding and bartering for. OK. So it's going to take some time to learn the game. And no, it isn't like one of those elegant, perfect information, Japanese Go experiences. But it is fun. And often surprising. And not too challenging. And though you're competing, and though only one of you can win, there's just enough luck involved to keep you from taking it too seriously. Labels: Thinking Games
Sunday, December 21, 2003
Shipwrecked
 Shipwrecked is an intense, challenging bidding game with enough strategic ramifications to occupy every corner of your so-called mind. You bid for cards. The cards have funny pictures on them. They also have three different values. Each card is worth a certain amount of points (the accumulation of which is the point of the game), pays a certain amount of "gemstones" every turn (which you need if you win the bid), and has a certain value (in case you run out of gemstones and have to sell the card back to the bank). The bidding process is really what the game is all about. Each of the 2-4 players has three different types of bid cards. You get three Pass cards (which mean just that), two Stop cards (which you can use to stop the bidding and force a showdown), and one Strike card which wins the bid only if it is the only one used during that round. There are a total of 6 bidding rounds per card, each round costing the winner one gemstone less. Sound complex? Well, it did take us a while to figure out the rules. And it took us a much longer while to figure out what the rules really mean (you'll probably need to play it at least twice, at at least 20 minutes a game, before you have any sense of what it all means). But the learning process is fun, the game intriguing, and, despite the competitive pressure, the surprise of discovering who bid what leads more often to laughter than it does to despair. The game play of Shipwrecked is similar to a classic card game known as " G.O.P.S." - the Game of Pure Strategy - with just enough humor, luck and variables thrown in to keep you engaged and laughing until you discover that someone has actually won. Most Major FUN Award-worthy. Labels: Thinking Games
Monday, November 24, 2003
10 Days in Africa
 Ten Days in Africa is an innovative game of strategy and luck for 2-4 players. Definitely strategic, with enough luck to keep the game surprisingly fun. Like Hasbro's RackO, the object is to put ten randomly selected cards into some sort of sequence. You fill the wooden card holders with cards one at a time. Once a card is placed, it can't be moved - only exchanged with a card from the deck or one of three discard piles. Unlike RackO, the sequence is topological, rather than numerical. A win depicts a path, by foot, car, and/or plane, that leads from country to country to country, spanning all ten cards. At first, we found ourselves thinking more than we really had to, so playing time for the four of us was more than an hour. The rules are a paragon of brevity and elegance, but it took a while to gain a proper appreciation for the geopolitical innuendos of the African continent. And it took another while to understand the implications of the different modes of travel. Or the significance of the three, face-up discard piles and the strategic covering up or revealing of the cards thereupon. It's a learning that is easily curved by playing. Just make the first game not count. Consider it an opportunity to play with a set of wonderfully thick little cards that fit everso handsomely into their wooden card holders; a chance to get a bit more familiar with the geopolitics of Africa; a learning experience. A learning-geography-like learning experience, as a matter of fact. As a matter of fact, the most fun I've ever had learning geography. Even though the map could have really been a map of anywhere. In fact, maybe precisely because the map could have been a map of everywhere. Which probably explains why you might also consider buying Ten Days in the USA, or, for that matter, Ten Days Almost Anywhere - the Paris Metro, perhaps? Downtown Kabul? As we were finishing the first round of the game, one veteran Games Taster said: "let's remember this experience. It's a benchmark for the kind of excellence the Major FUN Award represents." Labels: Senior-Worthy, Thinking Games
Tuesday, September 09, 2003
Doubles Wild
 Warning! It looks like another game of tic tac toe. In fact, it looks like a game of tic tac toe where you roll dice to decide where you can put your marble on the grid. So, it's wooden. So it's really well-made and delicious to feel. But, so what? It's tic tac toe! Well, it is, and it isn't. The tic tac toe part of it makes it easier to understand and play. The dice part of it, most surprisingly, elevates the game to something surprisingly unique, nail-bitingly exciting and, from time to time, pants-wettingly fun. See, it's called " Doubles Wild." And it's the wild doubles thing that is at least partly responsible for the fun of it all. Because without the wild doubles thing, you just roll your the dice and move where they tell you to. But with the wild doubles thing, you can position your marble anywhere along the specified row or column. And if you get two doubles (it didn't happen to us during the Tasting, but we all acknowledged the possibility), then you can put your marble anywhere on the board. And it's also the attack-defend thing. See, if you can land on someone else's piece, you can maybe remove it from play. Maybe, because you have do engage your opponent in the feared "battle of the dice" where you have three chances to try to roll the higher total. And the losing player loses a marble. And even more surprisingly, it's the roll again thing. If you don't like your first roll, you can roll either or both pair of dice again. So you have to think of the odds. And the strategy. And how desperate you are to keep the other player from winning. And, as you can almost guess from the first move, it's the more and more marbles on the board thing that really makes the game into what one could only call a Major FUN Award-worthy experience. Because as the board gets populated, so do the strategic implications. You can play Doubles Wild with two, three or four players. We had six at the time of our tasting, so we decided to play the 3-player version, in teams of two. I wish you could have been there to hear the profundity of reasoning and the intricacy of pro- and con- measurement. We played for an hour, and were surprised by the depth of the game on the average of every three minutes. Labels: Family Games, Senior-Worthy, Thinking Games
Friday, June 27, 2003
Quits
 OK, you can call it " Quits," but you won't want to. Quit, that is. In fact, you'll want to play it again, and again, and at least again. That is if you like strategy games for two or four players. Especially if you like Major FUN Award-worthy strategy games. You know those sliding block puzzles? If not (and especially if so) check out The Sliding Block Puzzle Page. Now take another look at the Quits board in the picture. See how it's made of blocks, and how the wooden-marble-pieces rest on those blocks? On your turn, you can either move a piece or move a row of blocks (you temporarily remove one of the blocks). The goal is to get your marbles to the opposite side of the board. And, of course, every time a row is moved, everything on that row moves with it. Quits is one of several remarkably playworthy and innovative strategy games from Gigamic, represented in the US and Canada by Family Games. You'll be seeing more of them, and so will we. Labels: Thinking Games
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
Abalone
 Abalone is one of those few, elegant, easy-to-learn, two-person strategy games. What makes it among the very few is a method of movement unique enough, and fun enough, to make playing the game a new, and utterly absorbing experience. Since utter absorption is the point of playing, Abalone is the kind of game the Major FUN Award was created for. The movement principle? Knock your opponent clean off the board. How? By pushing a bigger row of marbles into her. As you can kind of see from the picture, the board is made up of a hexagonal honeycomb of holes. Marbles rest on the holes. If you push a marble into any one of the six possible directions, and there's another marble or two or several in front of it, all the marbles move at the same time. Just pushing a row of marbles is kind of a fun thing to do, like the fun things you do when you're just playing with marbles. It's an even funner thing when you push a row of your marbles into your opponent's. And it's defnitely funnest when one of your opponent's marbles drops off the board as a result. Abalone has been around since 1988. It's been around long enough to create an international following. And that following has followed long enough to develop an active online community along with a collection of highly playworthy rule variations. For the non-Macintosh many, there's an online version. But nothing beats the delight of watching your opponent's jaw, and her last marble, drop into the pit of sweetly meaningless defeat. Labels: Keeper, Senior-Worthy, Thinking Games
Monday, June 23, 2003
Fire and Ice is Nice
 At our more-or-less weekly Game Tastings, we have come to have increasing respect for strategy games that are easy to learn, that challenge the intelligence, and are built on some unique principle. Primarily because there are so darn few of them. Fire and Ice is one of the few. One of a series of four, finely crafted wooden Masterpiece Games from Out of the Box Publications, Fire and Ice is a bit like playing seven games of tic-tac-toe, simultaneously. But only enough of a bit to make the game easy to understand. And then, the fun starts. When you move one of your pegs, you have to put one of your opponent's pegs into the hole that you just vacated. The effect of this rule is to create a kind of mental tickle as you try to contemplate each move from the twin perspectives of your position and your opponent's. There's a lovely, mathematical symmetry to the design of the board: "The board contains seven raised triangular islands. Each island has seven holes and the playing pegs fit into these holes. On each island, six lines and a circle connect the holes to make seven groups of three holes each. The islands themselves are also connected together in the same pattern." Fire and Ice is a welcome addition to our collection of Major FUN Award winning strategy games - unique, easy to learn, a game that takes 20-30 minutes to play, and yet is deep enough for some deliciously deep thinking. Labels: Thinking Games
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Tantrix
 It's a puzzle. It's a strategy game. You can buy it online. You can play it online. It's called "Tantrix," and it gets the Major FUN Award. The hexagonal tiles are made of Bakelite. Touching and smushing them around is almost as delicious as playing with them. The Tantrix Game Pack consists of 56 tiles. Each tile is unique. There are four different color lines - some are curved, some straight, some are even more curved. There are numbers on the other side of each tile. These are used to determine which tiles are to be employed in creating which puzzle. The Discovery Puzzles involve using tiles numbered 1-30. The Rainbow Puzzles require sorting the numbers into like colors. Then there's Tantrix Solitaire. And, of course, the strategy game for 2-4 players. There's a bit of learning to do in order to play the strategy game, and the puzzles are the perfect training vehicle. Playing online is very satisfying - the interface is intuitive, the online chat adding a feeling of immediacy and community. Invented in 1987, in New Zealand, by a New Zealish chap named Mike McManaway, Tantrix is a unique puzzle/game, deserving a position of prominence in anyone's game collection. Labels: Family Games, Keeper, Thinking Games
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