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.

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.

Uptown

Uptown, you see, baby, it's like this, it'll fool you, this Uptown game. It's like that, with it's fancy 30s fonts and the sophisticated 30s 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.

Speaking of fun again, you should know that the game is, surprisingly, from that fabulous online game store, Funagain. Makes sense. These are the kind of people who should know a good game when they see one. And it looks like they do, at least Uptown-wise.

Uptown is almost as easy to learn as punching out pieces from a chadless die cut board. Which you do. Four boards worth. Each punch a small pleasure. The game board is a grid, 30s-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 4 different sets, so up to 4 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 4 tiles you don't absolutely have to play, if you don't want to. 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 separate one of someone else's.

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. Gentle fun. 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.

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.

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.

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.

Amuse Amaze

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

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

Wait - I'm still explaining.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Go Mental

Which of these doesn't belong?

guessing
challenge
knowledge
steal

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

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

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

?
Octopus
Squid
Scorpion
Spider

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mother Sheep

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Quartile

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Q-BA-MAZE

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

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

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

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

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

You'll be amazed.

Lost Cities

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gemlok

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.