The MAJOR FUN Awards

Boochie

2008-05-05T07:46:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

Attribute

2008-04-18T06:10:00.000-07:00

Attribute, another minor wonder of strategic silliness from Z-Man Games, is a word game inviting more than a bit of psycho-strategico contemplation.

There are two decks of cards: one deck of 60 sheep cards and another of 164 attribute cards. There are only two kinds of sheep in your cutely-illustrated sheep card deck - the green sheep card of topic matching and the red, out-of-topic sheep card. There are 164 kinds of attribute cards, indicated by words like: "spooky," "bleak," "wild," and "furry."

Each person gets 4 attribute cards and one sheep card. Let's say you have a red sheep card. You put that card face down, in front of you. One player, anyone, actually, makes up a topic. Really, literally, any topic. For example: crime. You are more or less in luck. At least one of your 4 cards clearly and obviously is unrelated to "crime." For example, "Furry." But perhaps less in luck than you might first have thought. Because if you put down your Furry card it will be fairly obvious to everyone that you are a red sheep. It might have been better to use your "spooky" card, or even the card called "wild." At least you might make someone hesitate.

Because, you see, when all is said and done, and everyone has put their sheep face down and an attribute face up, players then select (e.g. grab) any face down pair, the object being to have grabbed a green sheep, and not a red, don't you see. So when all the pairs are on the table, you have to think very, very quickly - is the attribute that's revealed enough like the category to be covering a green sheep? Or is it perhaps a ruse, or a rouge, by any other name?

Since Attribute can be played by as many as 8 people, it is definitely a party game. It might also succeed as a family game, depending on age of the youngest players. We'd recommend 10 and above for a mixed age group, and 8-10 for a kids' game.

Designed by Marcel-Andre Casasola Merkle, Attribute is a unique and engaging word game. Major FUN.

On the Dot

2008-04-16T16:28:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-16T06:40:00.000-07:00

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.

Party Pooper

2008-04-15T05:21:00.000-07:00

In the latest Out-of-the-Box card-(432 cards)-reading, personality-predicting, finger-pointing fun.

There's a die (the Party Cube). You roll the die. That tells you whether you are looking for the most or least likely person in the group who, for example, would join a bow-hunting safari. It says "Party Pooper," so you're looking for the person you think would be least likely to want to join that old bow-hunting safari. At the count of three, everybody points. Since it's you're turn to be the prime pointer (the "host"), you point to the person you think is the Pooper, while at the same time everyone points to the person they think would be the person you would point at. Get it? Not necessarily the "real" person. Just the person they think you would point at. Then everyone who pointed at the same person you pointed to gets points (chip) and gets to give you points (also a chip) ("gets" as in "has to"). Everybody else, the nay-pointers, as it were, gets nothing. And that's the game. And someone else gets to be the host. And the die is rolled. And a card is picked. And people point. And then they laugh.

And that's it, in brief. In sum, Party Pooper, the many-carded game with chips and pointing and laughing, is Major FUN. In a little more depth, I think you should know why this makers suggest that the game be played, yes, by as many as 8 players, in party-like fashion, as long as everyone's at least 12. Physically and emotionally. Because getting pointed at or not, as fun as it can be, is easy to take a little too personally. In fact, there might be people who have been categorized as adults, and yet might actually be prone to taking such playful pointings personally.

And there is an alternate set of rules, actually, that don't involve finger pointing, but rather thumbs-upping or -downing.

But you happen to be the kind of person who plays for fun. And regular-old Party Pooper happens to be just that kind of game, especially with all the pointing. A genuinely fun game. And the people you want to play with are also of that emotional age we consider to be at least 12. And it will be something definitely, deliciously fun, this game of Party Pooper. I promise, or my name is not Major Fun.

Uptown

2008-04-14T06:03:00.000-07:00

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.

Bucket Brigade

2008-04-11T15:54:00.000-07:00

Bucket Brigade - another rather gently competitive game from the profitably playful mind of Renier Knizia - is a horse race game you play basically with cards, a scoreboard and wooden firepeople.

There are only 4 wooden firepeople - a red one, a green one, a blue one and a yellow one - even though 3 or up to 5 humanpeople can play. Each wooden fireperson is a different color. There are also 55 cards. There are cards with red firepeople and cards with blue firepeople, and there are cards with firepeople who are walking and worth one step, and there are cards with firepeople who are walking and worth one step and firepeople who are running and worth. So, if you play a walking red firperson, the red wooden fireperson goes one step higher (one space further) on the ladder-looking scoreboard. And the higher you make a fireperson of certain color go, the higher the worth of the firepeople of the same color depicted on your cards. Totally tally is not taken, however, until one fireperson makes it to the top of the conceptual ladder.

Thus, you see, you're not racing to get a wooden fireperson to the top as much as you're racing to make the firepeople on your cards worth more. Simple enough? Yeah. But kind of fascinating. You wanting the yellow wooden fireperson to get to the space that makes all the yellow card firepeople worth three times as much, her rooting for the blue wooden fireperson.

Kind a like those horse racing games. But different. Easier to play. More fun for the family. Gently competitive. Moderately strategic. Major FUN.

From Face2Face.

Rage

2008-04-10T07:35:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Very Major FUN.

Traverse

2008-04-09T06:02:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheeky Monkey

2008-04-07T06:58:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Incan Gold

2008-02-26T08:54:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hyper-Slide

2008-02-13T14:02:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fast Pass: slide the color puck the Hyperhost tells you to, and only that color puck, in maybe 90 seconds, as often as you can while the music gets faster and so does the Cyberhost.
Add One: like the game of Simon, you have to slide an ever increasing repeating series of pucks, puck-by-puck.
Code Buster - slide whatever works until you happen to slide the right ones across the goal. try to do it faster next time.
Fast Pass - Head to Head: Fast Pass for two. Hyperbandlessly.
Add One - Head to Head: Also Hyperbandlessly, Add One - for also 2. Or 4 especially even. Though playing by yourself is also fun, even.

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

From: Hasbro.

Chaos

2008-02-08T07:05:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

Imaginiff - the card game

2008-02-05T08:47:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

Most assuredly Major FUN.

Mirror-aculous® Art Activities

2008-02-03T21:06:00.000-08:00

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

Today I find myself once again waxing my enthusiasm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We're talking Major FUN.

Chateau Roquefort

2007-12-09T11:00:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cowabunga

2007-11-30T17:00:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Geominos

2007-11-26T14:27:00.000-08:00

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.

Gumball Rally

2007-11-25T22:55:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

A lot of big fun in this little game.

The List of Five is Finalized

2007-11-23T11:40:00.000-08:00

Major Fun's 2007 List of Five: - the topmost majorfunnest makeyoulaughmost party games of the year, according the Major Fun Board of Impartial Game Tasters and Major Fun, of MajorFun.com, him-actual-self.

Hexa-Trex

2007-10-28T17:31:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

Nacho Loco

2007-10-24T07:18:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pieceless Puzzles

2007-10-23T18:46:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

Escalation!

2007-10-23T14:19:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amuse Amaze

2007-10-23T07:42:00.000-07:00

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.