The MAJOR FUN Awards

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Connect 4 revisited

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 09:01:00 +0000

There's a new version of Connect 4. It's called Connect 4. But it's more. It's three different Connect 4 games. The first, you already know. It's the "original" Connect 4. The second is not. It's called "PopOut Connect 4." The third is also new. It's called "Pop Ten."

The bottom row of the Connect 4 grid has been changed. There's a sliding bar on the very bottom. If you slide it to the right, the checkers that are in the bottom row can be "popped" out. Well, pushed out. Which, in turn, will cause all the checkers that are in that column to fall down one space. Which results in a new alignment of checkers. Which could very well result in the sudden appearance of a line of 4 checkers, all ever so delightfully in a row.

You can only pop checkers of your own color. Which makes sense, considering. In PopOut Connect 4, you either add a checker, as in traditional Connect 4, or push one of your checkers out of the bottom row. In either event, if it results in 4-in-a-row (of your checkers, of course), you win. On the other hand, your pop could result in the very alignment your opponent was so sincerely wishing for. Thus, even though the game is very much like your traditional Connect 4, it's different enough for you to have to rethink everything you know about Connect 4 strategies.

Then there's Pop 10, which, oddly enough, is a different game altogether, a figure-ground reversal, one might say, a shift in your basic Connect 4 gestalt. To game begins with a board-full of checkers. You take turns, dropping one checker at a time, until there are no more checker-accommodating spaces. A move consists of popping a checker out of the bottom row (again, you can only pop checkers of your own kind). You can pop any of your bottom-row checkers. But, if that checker happens to already be part of a 4-in-a-row alignment, you can pop again. Every time you do so, you get to keep that checker. When you can no longer pop, your turn is over. If the checker you pop is not part of a Connected 4, you return it to some other column.

Pop 10 is different from all other variations of Connect 4. And it is as much fun. Because there are three so very different versions, you have to decide which you want to play together. This is a decision that you have to make together. And, simply because you are both making that decision, the game takes its rightful place as a way to have fun together - not so much as a way to see who is the better thinker or player or person, but more to find a game that you both want to play, together.

The thing about all Connect 4 games, and so many of the best of Hasbro games, is that they're very much like toys - as much fun to play with as they are to play. The new Connect 4 is just that: fun to play, fun to play with. Easy to understand, but different enough from everything you know about traditional Connect 4 to have to think of it as something new. Easy to learn. Quick to play. A genuinely enjoyable invitation to logical and strategic thinking. Major FUN.

Dig It and Oops!

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 09:01:00 +0000

Dig It and Oops! are two of the new puzzle sets recently released by Foxmind. They both use an ingeniously designed carrying/storing/playing case, and are each collections of 50 puzzles involving a set of pieces which have to be moved from the starting position to the solution.

Dig It is a bit like Pentominoes, using pieces of different shapes and size. In addition to these pieces (made of satisfyingly weighty, pleasingly colorful, translucent plastic), there are pieces shaped like bones. In each puzzle, the pieces are positioned over a bone or two. The puzzle is to figure out how to move the pieces around so as to reveal the bone(s). It's a bit like being a dog, digging for a bone. Hence the doggy graphics on the cover. In addition to the collection of pieces, there's a puzzle book, spiral bound, with its own stand. It's designed so that the solution to one puzzle is on the back of the previous puzzle, so all you have to do to get a hint or check your result is turn the book around. The puzzles are graded, one-paw puzzles being significantly easier to solve than four-paw puzzles.

Oops has a magician theme. There are 9 pieces. One is shaped like a hat. Another like a magician's head. The rest look a bit like sailor hats. There are 4 colors of sailor hat pieces: blue, red, green, and yellow. Pieces are set up according to a diagram - a different piece (or two) on each space - a different set up on each page in the puzzle book. You can move a piece one space either vertically or horizontally, as long as it lands on top of another piece. Which makes it a stack of two pieces. Which can only move two spaces, horizontally or vertically, as long as that stack lands on top of yet another piece. And so on and so on, a three-stack moving three spaces, a four-stack four, until, with your final move, the hat is on the bottom, the rest of the pieces are on top of the hat, and the head is on top of them all.

The carrying/storage/playing case for both puzzle/games is in itself magical. You slide the cover to the left or right, revealing a compartment. And, once the cover has been repositioned, you can turn it over to become the playing board. It's sturdily built of brightly colored plastic.

Each of these puzzles is an investment in fun. They're fun to touch, fun to try to solve. The more challenging puzzles are usually ingeniously so - offering unexpected variations that sometimes redefine your whole understanding of what this puzzle is about. You can cheat as often as you need to (just turn the book around for the answer). You can skip to more difficult puzzles, essentially designing your own curriculum of challenge.

Don't be fooled by the child-appealing design. As you progress through the puzzle booklet, even the mature puzzler will discover most definitely adult-worthy challenge.

As a teacher, these puzzles are a paradigm of good curriculum design - always inviting further and deeper exploration, always just as challenging as the student is ready for. As a player, they are invitations to mastery and delight. Well-made, cleverly-designed, continually fascinating, engaging the eye and mind, providing intelligent, functional fun.

Smart Toss: Math Sport

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 09:01:00 +0000

Tossing beanbags into a target is fun for almost any reason you can think of. It's what you might call "just plain fun." For kids. For grownups. You can play by yourself. You can play in teams. You can get competitive about it if you want. You can play it just for fun. You can increase the challenge (stand further away from the target). You can make it easy enough for a three-year-old.

From the pure fun perspective, Learning Resources Smart Toss has everything you'd want in a bean bag tossing game. And more. It has your bean bags. It has your target board. The bean bags are made out of canvas, for durability and feel. They are just the right size for a child's hand. They are also numbered, from 1 to 10. Hmmm. Numbered bean bags. Already you have something a little different, a little more interesting to play with. The target board is light enough to carry around easily. It's vinyl, so it's easy to keep clean. It's reinforced, so it can withstand childish enthusiasm. There are bean bag storage pockets, and, depending on how you set it up, there are 4 different game boards to choose from.

Hmm. Numbered bean bags, 4 different boards. Perfect for reinforcing different kinds of elementary math skills, not only without spoiling the fun, but also making the games more, well, interesting.

Consider the basketball-like game. You use only three of the bean bags - the 3, 4 and 5. There are 6 targets (pockets). Two of the targets are worth the number on the bean bag. Two are worth twice as much. And the remaining two are worth three times the number on the bean bag. So, see, you have to multiply, and add, in order to determine your actual score.

Then there's a kind of bowling game. You choose two bags whose numbers add to 10. You toss them one at a time into any of the 4 pockets. One pocket counts as a strike (which in this game is worth 20 points). Another as a spare (10 points). And the other two are worth the number on the bean bag.

So now you're adding, and maybe even strategizing (do I take the number 6 and 4 bean bags so I can relatively good score no matter what pocket I land in, or do I take the 9 and 1 so, just in case my 1 doesn't make a strike or a spare, my 9 might at least make it to one of the other pockets.

Each of the 4 games offers not only a playworthy opportunity to exercise some basic math skills, but also another inspiration for making up your own game. Which means, in addition to the quality of the device - its portability, durability, storability and colorfulness - and the essential playability of the beanbag tossing game, and the incentives the 4 games provide for children to exercise their basic math skills; Smart Toss: Math Sport offers children the inspiration to invent their own games - games which can be even more challenging to more skills, which will undoubtedly prove to lead to even more fun, of the frequently major kind.

Zenith

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:30:00 +0000

Triangles are cool. They invite choice in matters of symmetry and lead to all kinds of complex designs once you link more than a few of them together. I find there is something a bit unsettling about geometric patterns that are based on triangles if the pattern is left incomplete, but I experience a rush of satisfaction when the last piece is placed and the figure is finished.

Zenith, a strategic tiling and stacking game by MindWare, tapped into this fascination I have with triangles. The game demonstrated how robust and fun a competition can be with only a few simple rules and some thoughtfully designed game-pieces.

In keeping with the magic number, I’ll break game-play down into three parts: the goal, the tiling, and the stacking.

The goal: Be the last player to place one of your triangular tiles.

The tiling: Each player has a set of colored, wooden triangles (58 in a 2-person game, 29 in the 3- or 4-person games). They take turns setting their triangles on the game board which is patterned with white triangles that indicate where players may place their pieces. The game comes with four boards, each with a slightly different pattern and named after a mountain (Mt. Fuji, Pikes Peak, Twin Peaks, and Krakatoa).

The stacking: Moving up makes things interesting. A player can place a tile on top of three lower tiles IF the player’s color is one of the bottom tiles. Here’s where the triangle’s unique symmetry creates complexity and strategic choices. Players try to block their opponents, but they must also make sure that they leave plenty of options as lower levels fill up and the upper levels get smaller and smaller.

Not only is Zenith a joy to play from a competitive point of view, I found a lot of satisfaction in simply handling game-pieces that are so thoughtfully crafted. The triangular game tiles are solid, colorful, double-sided, finished wood. They invite a lot of creative, careful manipulation and building while your opponents are debating their next move. (One of our Tasters was a little frustrated at how careful the manipulations had to be, in particular, how easy it was to dislodge pieces as they were stacked one on the other, but the game proved too absorbing for any of us to remain bothered by the extra care required.) The game-boards are double-sided and the edges are inscribed with interesting facts about the namesake mountains. For instance, I did not know that “Krakatoa continues to increase in height 16 feet (5m) every year...”

I especially appreciate the efficient packaging and use of space that MindWare employed in the game’s design. Nothing is wasted and it’s all major fun.

Zenith was designed by Nicholas Cravotta and Rebecca Bleu of BlueMatter Games. © 2009 MindWare.

Will Bain, Game Taster

Can You See What I Seee? Finders Keepers Game

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:54:00 +0000

When you have children under the age of 9, card games take on a few distressing similarities. First, the chances of actually maintaining a complete deck of cards are approximately the same as keeping a red sock out of the white load. Second, the chances of the cards remaining in playable condition plummet in much the same trajectory as a car’s value once you drive it off the lot. Third, (and here’s where I roll my eyes) I hope you enjoy matching games. A lot.

So in this spirit of trepidation and jaded-father cynicism, I considered Can You See What I See? Finders Keepers Game by
Gamewright. It’s a matching card game that not only proved to be a hit with my girls and their scrum of free-range friends, but it cracked open my shell enough so that I enjoyed it too. A lot.

Consider just the cards. Tiles might be a more accurate description. The game box contains 100 sturdy cards: 40 Find Me tiles and 60 Keep Me cards. Each Find Me tile has a single image—things like toy dinosaurs, plastic trucks, porcelain ballerinas, and dominoes. The Keep Me cards are larger and each card has four images that correspond to the Find Me tiles. Beautiful cards. Solid, colorful, laminated, and wonderfully textured cards. The instructions indicate the game is for ages 4 and up and I can believe it. These cards are made to be played. These cards will last.

Gameplay is simple, varied, and satisfying. The rules spell out two ways to play, but our kids were happy to come up with other variations. The game for younger children (4 and up) recommends dealing out 10 – 12 of the large Keep Me cards to each player (face-up). The Find Me tiles are shuffled and stacked. The players take turns revealing a Find Me tile and everyone looks to see if they have the matching image on their Keep Me cards. The winner… we didn’t pay much attention to winning in this game. The kids had a blast trying to find the images and trying to guess what would come next.

The variation for ages 8 and up involves a bit more decision making. Nine of the Keeper Cards are revealed in the middle of the table. Each player has a pile of Finder Tiles that they are trying to match to the Keeper Cards in the middle. Players take cards that match their tiles and new Keeper Cards are revealed to fill the empty spaces. A bit of strategy comes in when players have to decide which matches will get them the most points and maybe make things difficult for their opponents.

We played both variations with a group of kids aged 4 to 10. The very youngest needed a bit of help with the variation for older kids, but everyone remained engaged for the better part of an hour. I might not be able to keep all the cards from wandering away, but I know that the ones that remain will be sturdy and major fun!

Can You See What I See? Finders Keepers Game is designed by Brian S. Spence, Garrett J. Donner, and Michael S. Steer, with contributions to the Expert Finders Keepers version by Walter Wick, author of the I Spy, and Can You See What I See book series.

Will Bain, Games Taster

The Parsons Effect - Perturbation

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:12:00 +0000

Further exploration of the Parsons Effect demonstrates what happens when you spin a hexagon-shaped magnet-cluster near similar hexagon-shaped magnet-clusters.

Parsons comments: "It's like, when the one that is spinning is in full spin, the other, more stayed hexagon-shaped magnet clusters choose to ignore all that frenzied enthusiasm. But as it slows down, the others start noticing, and, with a wiggle and perhaps even a spin of their own, acknowledge the whirl.

Hexaspin - The Parsons Effect

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:00:00 +0000

Discovered by Charles Parsons, behold - a whole new world of hexagon spinning.

The center ball is pushed just a teeny bit lower than the rest so that the hexagon rests on one point.

(requires 19 Neodymium magnetic ballies)

Dizios

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:20:00 +0000

Dizios is a highly visual tile game that plays with color the way most tile games play with shape or number.

The 70 thick, cardboard tiles are matched edge to edge. Some edges are all one color. Many more are two colors. Each tile is worth a certain number of points (indicated by dots in the center of the tile). Players get points, not for the tile they place, but for the tiles they connect to.

Dizios can be played by 1-4 players, of a recommended age of 6 or older. There's very little strategy involved, so the game is easily accessible to younger children.

To play with more than one player, the special "starter tile" is placed in the center of the table. The rest of the tiles are placed face down, mixed, and then set aside or built into draw piles. Each player selects 4 tiles. For the rest of the game, players take turns, matching a tile on to the expanding grid, if possible; taking score (by counting the dots that appear on the adjacent tiles), and then picking a new tile from the face-down tiles. If no match is possible, the player must forfeit his turn.

The score pad is designed so any player who can count can keep score.

As a solitaire, Dizios offers a surprising variety of challenges. You can try to make a "vortex" (an array of connected tiles) of all one color, you can try for a vortex that is 8x8, 7x10, 5x14. Or, you can arrange try to arrange the tiles so they create the highest possible score. The solitaire versions greatly extend the fun of the game, and could easily lead a moderately creative player to develop more interesting variations of the competitive game.

Dizios is an easy game to learn. The visual challenge is easy to understand, intriguing enough to entice a 6-year-old, attractive and complex to engage the full attention of adults.

It is like dominoes only insofar as there are tiles that get matched - which makes the game that much easier to understand. But it is a very different game. Unique. Visually pleasing. Well made. Only lightly competitive. Intriguing (especially the solitaire versions) enough for serious adult contemplation. Inviting enough to engage the whole family. You can play in teams. You can play by yourself. You can make up your own challenge. Fun. Major FUN.

Imaginets

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:25:00 +0000

Think Colorforms - thick, bright, hefty, magnetic, geometrically-shaped colorforms. Imagine these thick, bright, hefty, geometrically-shaped colorform-like pieces that you carry around in a wood-framed suitcase. Now, while you're at it, think Tangrams. That would explain the deck of large, two-sided cards, printed with colorful designs of varying complexity - each of which can be made with some or all of the thick, bright, hefty, colorful, geometrically-shaped pieces. OK. We're getting close.

Now, add a dry-erase marker or two. Note how you can draw, and of course, erase on the inside of both panels of the suitcase. Which means, if you want, you could make any shape out of any combination of pieces, outline the shape with a marker, and make your own puzzle. Can you take all the pieces off and put them back on?

Imagine all the things you could do with this set, all the places you could play with it, the puzzles you can try to solve, the puzzles you can create, the designs you can make. If your imagination is good enough, you'll understand why this toy is called Imaginets, and why it was given a Major FUN award.

Imaginets is a toy that can engage children in a wide variety of creative and intellectual play experiences. It is easily shared (lay it flat and you have two, clearly de-marked play surfaces), and just as easily something that your child can play with by herself. It's roughly the same size and feel of a briefcase or laptop computer, and thus lends itself to dramatic play. The ability to draw on the surfaces (no, the dry-erase markers are not included, and yes, it'd be neat if they were) adds a unique dimension to this activity, increasing the invitation to play, to exploration, to creativity and interaction.

Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:38:00 +0000

If I could travel back in time and give my early adolescent self a gift of potentiation and portends of power, it would be a copy of John Austin's Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction. If I were my father, on the other hand, I'd take that book away from me in a most timely and uncompromising manner, hide it in a place where only I could find it, and read it from cover to cover.

On yet another hand, my going on 8-, going on 21-year old granddaughter loves this book.

Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction contains 241 pages of detailed, painstakingly illustrated instructions for making (and here I read from the table of contents) launchers and bows, slingshots, darts, catapults, combustion shooters (combustion shooters!), minibombs and claymore mines, and, finally, concealing books and targets.

Did I mention combustion shooters? Like the famous match rocket which you can make out of paper or wooden matches, with nothing more than aluminum foil, a needle or pin, a medium binder clip (Austin loves those binder clips), a toothpick and a large paper clip? O, there are warnings. "Eye protection and a safe firing range are musts" declares the ever-pragmatic Austin. "Match rocketry is not an exact science," he cautions, "misfires and modifications will be needed to find the perfect balance." Match rockets! How inexorably cool is that?

There are two things that make Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction such a fun read: 1) every "weapon" is made out of common household objects, and 2) the instructions are exceptionally clear and well-illustrated. OK. There are three things: 3) the sheer ingenuity of the designs. It's the very kind of book MacGuyver might have read during his training course. For fun. Of course.

Want more? Visit John's site. Learn a little about him. Print out a few targets. Get instructions for building more. Meditate on the nuances of "implements of spitball warfare."

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

Q-bitz

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:01:00 +0000

You get a wooden tray with 16 identical wooden cubes. One face of the cube is light, the opposite, dark. Another face shows a light circle on a dark background, the opposite, the opposite (a dark circle on a light background). The other two faces are half-and-half, diagonally divided. And with 16 of them, you can make at least 120 different, and often beautiful patterns. You can tell that, because there are 120 pattern cards, each different, each composed out of the simple shapes on the cubes.

Mindware's Q-bitz is a game of visual perception for 2-4 players. A pattern card is revealed, and players race to be the first to echo the pattern on their own board. That's one way to play. The designers suggest that you play in three rounds (or not), each round a variation. The second round, you have to roll the dice, use what you can, then roll the remainder, then use what you can, then continue rolling, using what you can, until you've made the pattern, and, hopefully, are the first to have done so, correctly. Finally, the third round: After the pattern card is revealed, and everyone has an agreed-on time to look at it, it's turned over. Face-down. And then everyone tries to replicate the pattern, from memory!

Q-Bitz turns out to be a remarkably challenging game, no matter how you play it. I, in the fullness of my 68-year-old maturity was able to win the first card. We tried the second with the rolling variation, but quickly decided to continue the way we played the first round. It was difficult enough. I won the second card. Then we played the third round - the one where you were supposed to be able to remember the pattern. Looked easy until we tried it. So we tried it again. And then continued the way we started. And I los the next four. It was suggested we stop after that. I think out of compassion.

We loved how challenging the game turned out to be - how simple it was, and yet how deeply it engaged our perceptual skills. It was as fun losing as it was winning. We didn't play long. Maybe 20 minutes. But that was about all we could ask from our perceptual skills. At least for this time.

Easy to learn, well-made, cleverly designed, for 2-4 players, 8 and up. Major FUN.

An introduction to the Neodymium magnet executive puzzle toy

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 14:47:00 +0000

The four following reviews are almost identical, each featuring a different rendition of the same magnetic puzzle/toy concept. There are minor differences, and, depending the player's preferences, one might prove definitely more, shall we say, "attractive," than the rest. But comparing them to each in any effort to determine which was truly best only led us to the kinds of thinking that this website is not designed to support.

When we find an exceptional toy or game, one of sustainable play value, our goal is simply to add our bit of recognition and support, to recommend them as something worthy of your playtime. Our goal is not to tell you which is, for example, the best chess set you can buy, because chess is chess. And though the look and feel of different chess sets may appeal to different people, the fact is, if you want to play chess, it's still a good game, even if you're playing in with bits of paper. Rarely, we find a newly invented toy or game available, almost simultaneously, from 4 different sources. Given our mission here, the only solution we could arrive at was to create 4 different reviews, awarding each the Major Fun seal.

We think you'll enjoy this toy a great deal. Read the reviews. Check out the websites. It really doesn't matter which you end up buying. Each will bring you hours of challenging, engaging, and, hopefully, major fun.

Neocubes

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:12:00 +0000

We've been taking a very close look at a puzzling phenomenon, known as The Neo Cube. The website alone is sufficiently filled with invitations and incentives for purchasing these extremely attractive technical marvels to explain why we've been looking so closely.

Attractive indeed. Attracting curiosity, creativity, dexterity, ingenuity. Visually and tactually engaging. They are executive wonder toys. Moderately expensive investments, that payoff in hours of meditative, and sometimes significantly aggravating play.

Neocubes are made of Neodymium magnets - the strongest, longest lasting of rare earth magnets. These magnets really, really want to stick together. Assembling them into any of the amazingly attractive configurations shown on the web or featured in their documentation sometimes requires very strong fingers and deep, abiding dedication. Assembling the 6x6x6 cube (a challenge so fundamental that it has become a magnetic-ball-puzzle industry standard to include at least 216 - or 6-cubed balls) can get significantly frustrating, not because it is conceptually difficult, but rather because the balls can offer surprisingly strong resistance to being pulled apart or forced together in any way other than that which seems to appeal to them at the moment.

Neocubes comes in a blister pack that includes 8 extra magnets, instructions and a drawstring bag. The back of the pack contains ample warnings about the dangers of swallowing, heating, or handling these magnets should their coatings be compromised. The manufacturers strongly and understandably advise that these magnets should not be played with by children younger 12.

The spectacular variety of sculptural puzzles that these magnetic balls lend themselves to can be found everywhere on the web. On flickr you can find image after image of Neocubes. On Youtube you can watch a minor myriad of people making mini-metal-marble magnetic magic with Neocubes. As you watch, it is clear that making these extremely attractive configurations is as much a performance art as it is an act of conceptual mastery.

Until this review, the story of these amazing magnet balls has been uniformly focused on the many marvelous puzzle-like activities available to the magnet-ball-empowered few. Our explorations have revealed equally marvelous toy-potential. Here is a very simple example - showing what happens when you roll one ball at another, with appropriate speed and something like aim, on a plate. Turn up your sound to appreciate the fullness of the inherent glee.

With this very preliminary foray into the "toyetic" qualities of it all, we hereby invite your contributions of similarly jolly, playworthy discoveries. This first is but a taste. (Actually, more of a hint than a taste as the frame speed of the video doesn't show the full spinning glories we experienced. But a tasty hint, nonetheless.)

image by Frans (3Djavu.nl)

Buckyballs

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:01:00 +0000

We've been taking a very close look at a puzzling phenomenon, known, in this particular instantiation, as Buckyballs - a puzzle made of 216 (count 'em) extremely attractive (read "magnetic") balls.

Attractive indeed. Attracting curiosity, creativity, dexterity, ingenuity. Visually and hapticly engaging. They are executive wonder toys. Moderately expensive investments, that payoff in hours of meditative, and sometimes intensely aggravating play.

Buckyballs are made of Neodymium magnets - the strongest, longest lasting of rare earth magnets. These magnets really, really want to stick together. Assembling them into any of the amazingly attractive configurations shown on the web or featured in their documentation sometimes requires very strong fingers and deep, abiding dedication. Assembling the 6x6x6 cube (a challenge so fundamental that it has become a magnetic-ball-puzzle industry standard to include at least 216 - or 6-cubed balls) can get profoundly frustrating, not because it is conceptually difficult, but rather because the balls can offer surprisingly strong resistance to being pulled apart or forced together in any way other than that which seems to appeal to them at the moment.

Buckyballs comes with ample warnings about the dangers of swallowing, heating, or handling these magnets should their coatings be compromised. Noting quite clearly that the minimum recommended age is 13.

The spectacular variety of sculptural puzzles that these magnetic balls lend themselves to can be found everywhere on the web. On flickr you can find image after image of Buckyballs. On Youtube you can watch a minor myriad of people making mini-metal-marble magnetic magic with Buckyballs. As you watch, it is clear that making these extremely attractive configurations is as much a performance art as it is an act of conceptual mastery.

Cybercube

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:59:00 +0000

We've been taking a very close look at a puzzling phenomenon, known as CyberCube. We tried to look no further than their amazing, lovely to look at website, filled with invitations and incentives for purchasing these extremely attractive magnetic marvels, but couldn't stop there. We had to have one, at least. The very shiny silver one. Though the gold one looked at least as attractive, and the nickel and black at least as playworthy as the others.

Attractive indeed. Attracting curiosity, creativity, dexterity, ingenuity. Visually and haptically engaging. They are executive wonder toys. Moderately expensive investments, that payoff in hours of meditative, and sometimes moderately aggravating play.

Made of Neodymium magnets - the strongest, longest lasting of rare earth magnets, the Cybercube magnets really, really want to stick together. Assembling them into any of the amazingly attractive configurations shown on the web or featured in their documentation sometimes requires very strong fingers and deep, abiding dedication. Assembling the 6x6x6 cube (a challenge so fundamental that it has become a magnetic-ball-puzzle industry standard to include at least 216 - or 6-cubed balls) can get profoundly frustrating, not because it is conceptually difficult, but rather because the balls can offer surprisingly strong resistance to being pulled apart or forced together in any way other than that which seems to appeal to them at the moment.

They also all come with ample warnings about the dangers of swallowing, heating, or handling these magnets should their coatings be compromised. CyberCube recommends that they most definitely should not be played with by children aged 8 or under.

The spectacular variety of sculptural puzzles that these magnetic balls lend themselves to can be found everywhere on the web. On flickr you can find image after image of CyberCube. On Youtube you can watch a minor myriad of people making mini-metal-marble magnetic magic with CyberCube. As you watch, it is clear that making these extremely attractive configurations is as much a performance art as it is an act of conceptual mastery.

CyberCube come in a variety of packages and colors. You can get them in tins - which are fun to build on and, when the balls are stored inside the tin, helps eliminate the magnetic field. You can get them in boxes. You can get them in boxes (the magnets are a little smaller and cost a little less). You can get enough to make a 6x6x6 cube (with a few extras) or a 7x7x7 cube.

Zen Magnets

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:25:00 +0000

We've been taking a very close look at a puzzling phenomenon, known as Zen Magnets. Actually, you need look no further than their website to be delighted and enticed by a myriad invitations and incentives for purchasing these extremely attractive technical marvels.

Zen Magnets are made of Neodymium magnets - the strongest, longest lasting of rare earth magnets. They are also exceptionally lovely to behold in all their reflective, mirror-polished glory. These magnets really, really want to stick together. Assembling them into any of the amazingly attractive configurations shown on the web or featured in their documentation sometimes requires very strong fingers and deep, abiding dedication. Assembling the 6x6x6 cube (a challenge so fundamental that it has become a magnetic-ball-puzzle industry standard to include at least 216 - or 6-cubed balls) can get significantly frustrating, not because it is conceptually difficult, but rather because the balls can offer surprisingly strong resistance to being pulled apart or forced together in any way other than that which seems to appeal to them at the moment. Which explains why Zen Magnets comes with a plastic card that can be used as a prying tool.

They also come with ample warnings about the dangers of swallowing, heating, or handling these magnets should their coatings be compromised, advising, in no uncertain terms, that these magnets should not be played with by children younger than 12.

The spectacular variety of sculptural puzzles that these magnetic balls lend themselves to can be found everywhere on the web. On flickr you can find image after image of Zen Magnets. On Youtube you can watch a minor myriad of people making mini-metal-marble magnetic magic with Zen Magnets. As you watch, it is clear that making these extremely attractive configurations is as much a performance art as it is an act of conceptual mastery.

Zen Magnets also comes with a drawstring velvet bag (which is especially useful when you don't have the time or wish to make the effort to get them into any particular formation) and six extra magnet balls.

Piece o' Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:01:00 +0000

They call the game Piece o' Cake, though any mildly discerning eye would immediately perceive that what we're playing with here is plainly cheesecake, with clearly graham-cracker crust.

Before we go into details and rationale, let us pause for a moment of mutual assurance. Though it may not be apparent at first taste, Piece o' Cake is Major FUN. In fact, once you have whetted your appetite with a preliminary round or two, everything about it becomes fun, from beginning to end. For 2-5 players of strategic playing ages, Piece o' Cake is cunningly designed by Jeffrey D. Allers to provide the aforementioned players with 30 minutes of sometimes excruciatingly delicious conceptual glee. Allow me to reiterate and perhaps repeat - a preliminary round or two, despite the apparent clarity of the rules and this review, is everso wholeheartedly recommended.

There are 8 varieties of cheesecake. A whole cake, is made of 11 pieces - very nice, thick, well-finished, brightly colored cardboard pieces, which look quite delicious, actually, while remaining firmly, and somewhat disappointingly inedible. There are two attributes of strategic note about each variety of cake: the number of each variety (plainly inscribed thereon), and the number of whipped-cream-like dollops).

To prepare for the game, the 57 pieces are turned face-down, mixed (but not beaten), and assembled into 5 stacks of 11. The two extra pieces are returned to the box. The 5 stacks are then assembled, still face-down, in pie-like fashion. The first player then prepares the first cake, turning over the pieces of one stack, carefully maintaining the randomness in which those pieces have been ordered, to create a whole, multi-pieced cake, appearing, should one require more tempting vividness, much like one of those sampler cheesecakes one sometimes acquires at the fancier of cheesecake stores.

That same player then divides the completed cake into slices, each slice containing one or a multiple of adjacent pieces. This slicing is not in the least arbitrary, but chock full of tastily strategic implications.

Here, we require a bit of elaboration.

The point value of each slice is determined by two different factors - the number of dollops, and the number of that particular variety. Chocolate cheesecake slices, for example, are the most tempting. Each has three dollops, and hence, when eaten, is worth three points. Should one choose to collect, rather than eat one's chocolate cheesecake slices, and, should one manage to have, by game's end, collected a majority of said slices, one would have gained 11 calorie-free points.

Thus, though perhaps not immediately apparent upon the first foray into the goodiness of it all, the very first stage of each round of the game - the division of the cake into pieces (as many as there are players) - is crammed full of deliciously strategic implications, and evermore crammed every round of the game as it becomes evermore vivid which varieties of cake each player is hoping to collect. The slicing player, as tradition has it, gets the last piece, making this process of division tinged with a taste of abstract agony.

Once a piece is selected, that player may choose to eat (turn over and collect the dollop-score) any of the slices in that piece, or keep those pieces face-up in hopes of collecting more of the like kind. The game continues with each player getting a turn to be slicer. With each turn, what each player is hoping to collect becomes evermore obvious, and the significance of the slicing similarly evermore strategic.

When it becomes clear that you have no hope of collecting a majority of a given slice, you may choose to forgo a turn, and eat (turn over) one or many of your pieces, thus collecting dollop-score for each.

O, the choices, the yummy, yummy strategy-filled choices. The palatable pleasure. The luscious, mouthwatering, delectable, ambrosial, toothsome delight. The appetizing, scrumptiously finger-licking, lip-smackingingly melt-in-your-mouth-and-mind fun of it all.

Should you need to further whet your theoretical appetite, you can always download the complete rules, thoughtfully provided as a further customer service by Rio Grande Games.

Great American Puzzles from Fundex

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:00:00 +0000

One of our favorite puzzle companies has merged with one of our favorite game companies. The result is a wonderfully comprehensive offering of invitations to play.

The art of a good puzzle depends on two things - OK, maybe three: the graphics, the cut of the pieces, and the quality of the construction (of pieces and box). Classic American Fire Trucks is exemplary of all the above, and of the kinds of puzzles you can almost always expect from The Great American Puzzle Factory collection.

Classic American Fire Trucks is, first of all, shaped like a fire truck. This is cute. What's even cuter about the fire truck shape is that the borders of the puzzle (you know, the part of the puzzle you generally do first, because they're the easiest to find) are irregular. So, to find an edge piece, you frequently discover yourself turning it in every possible direction before you finally find the fit. Then the pieces seem to be somewhat deviously cut - often ending, as if on purpose, just at the edge of a line that you had hoped would prove instrumental in helping you find the piece it's connected to. And sometimes, a space you'd be absolutely sure can only be completed by a piece with a straightish edge turns out to need a curvey-edged piece.

Then there's the image - a brightly colored collage of eleven different fire trucks, each beautifully rendered and intricately detailed - in itself a kind of puzzle. And the box, which includes information about all the trucks in the illustration - adds yet another level of interest and engagement.

It's not a puzzle for little kids. It's significantly challenging, visually and intellectually absorbing, and often deeply satisfying. All 730 pieces of it.

Super Circles

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:01:00 +0000

Super Circles is another easy-to-learn, quick (and I mean quick) card game from Out of the Box (in this instance, a lovely metal box) that will challenge the speed, spatial and color perception skills of 2 to 4 players, pretty much extremely.

Each of the 73 cards shows 4 concentric rings, each of a different color. The rings are numbered (to guide the mind as well as the eye), but the game has nothing to do with numbers and everything to do with your ability to perceive which of the 4 rings on any given card matches the same ring on another.

The game begins with the distribution of the cards. The first card is turned over and placed in the center of the table, face-up, starting the target pile (the cards looking everso graphically target-like). The rest of the cards are distributed evenly, face down, between the players, forming their play pile. At a signal from the dealer, players begin to draw cards from their deck, competing to be the first to find a card whose ring matches the corresponding ring on the card on the top of the target pile. At each turn, players must match a ring that is different than the last ring matched. If the first player matches, for example, the second ring of the current target card, players then compete to match the first, third or fourth ring of the new card.

The first player to run out of all but one cards wins the game.

The visual challenge, combined with the need for speed, can easily become so intense that, from time to time, your mind just refuses to keep up. This feels better than it sounds - like a shiatsu massage for your perceptual skills.

Super Circles is an elegant, challenging little card game, demanding brief spurts of very intense focus. Designed by Maureen Hiron and Ron and Caron Bodkin, with art by John Kovalic and Cathleen Quinn-Kinney, it turns out to provide a unique challenge, one that will prove as engaging to a seven-year-old (no arithmetic, no spelling, no knowledge required other than color and the numbers 1-4) as to a parent or grandparent of renown visual acuity and acknowledged color-discrimination skills.

It is difficult to avoid comparing Super Circles to 7 ate 9 - another Major Fun Award-winning card game, also from Out of the Box, also designed by Maureen Hiron. The only significant difference between the two games is the part of the brain they tease into action. 7 ate 9 plays with numbers, so it leans left on the brainscape. Super Circles plays with colors, so it feels more rightwards leaning. For this reason, Super Circles can be played successfully by slightly younger children. But by no measure can we say that one game is better or more fun than the other. Though we might not play both of them in the same game session, our family games collection would certainly be richer for having both of these games.

7 ate 9

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:41:00 +0000

7 ate 9 may be the traditional explanation for 6's profound fear of 7, but it most definitely doesn't explain why it is such a fun family game. The responsibility for this welcome transformation lies squarely on the shoulders of designer Maureen Hiron, the art of Cathleen Quinn-Kinney and John Kovalic, and the acumen of the once again inspiringly playful folk of Out of the Box.

7 ate 9 is a card game of speed and calculation, similar to Spit, but significantly more excruciating - in a good way. A very good way.

Two to four players begin the game by taking the top card from the shuffled deck, placing it face-up in the center, and then distributing the rest of the deck evenly between players. Since there are 73 cards, after the first card is played on the table, the rest divide into satisfyingly even piles whether you're playing with 2, 3 or 4 players.

The cards are numbered from 1-10. In addition (or subtraction), each card also has a number, from 1-3, in the corner. That number is added or subtracted, at the player's discretion, from the main number, which determines what number card can be played next. So, if the top card is a 7 and the small number is a 2, the next card can be either a 5 (7-2) or a 9 (7+2).

The cards are also color-coded, to help direct your attention to the added (or subtracted) value - all plus-or-minus 1 cards being green, plus-or-minus 2 cards blue, plus-or-minus 3, red.

No turns are taken. Players simply draw cards from their face down pile, one at a time, if they can play a card, they announce the number and place it on top of the center pile, if not, they draw another card until they have found a playable card or someone else has. In the latter event, they must now look for a new match. The first player to get rid of all but one of her cards wins.

So it's like Spit - players playing simultaneously, as quickly as possible, trying everso assiduously to be the first to find the next playable card. And yet, it's not quite Spit. Not with there only being one pile, and the challenge of having to add or subtract in order to calculate what card is actually the next match. And then, say, you throw a 9, with a plus or minus, say, 2. Well, if you subtract 2, it's simple enough - you can match it with a 7. But if you don't have a 7, and you're fast enough, you can add the 2, which, arithmetically, would make 11, which is patently absurd since the highest card is a 10. If not for the "round the corner" rule, by which you can legitimately play a 1 (which, in a circular sequence, would be the next card). Similarly, if a 2, for example, is played, a 2 with a plus-or-minus 3, shall we say, you can play either a 4 or a 9. This logical bit of round-the-cornerness is wonderfully exasperating, making you have to think generally when you are least ready to.

Yes, yes, people will tell you that it's an educational game because it uses numbers and arithmetical operations, and yes, children who are weak in these particular skills will most definitely find themselves hovering on the other side of exasperation. But no matter how good you are with numbers, and how mature and experienced you are in the ways of life and games, you can easily find yourself succumbing to the speed and flexibility of an 8-year-old opponent. Yes, there is a modicum of luck involved - just the modicum needed to keep hope alive, keep the game fun, and make you want to play again and again.

Siam

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:30:00 +0000

Didier Dhorbait's abstract strategy game Siam is so beautifully crafted that you will treasure it even before you learn how to play it. Which is a good thing for two reasons: 1) the English translation of the rules is, well, very, shall we say, challenging, in a French kind of way; and 2) the rules are what some may call "unconventional," requiring you to exercise some conceptual effort before you fully appreciate the cleverness and complexity underlying their comparative simplicity.

Fortunately, Arthur Reilly has written a satisfyingly clear English description of the rules - clear enough to help you through most of your preconceptions to a truly remarkable strategy game - one that you can play in ten minutes with anyone old enough to appreciate a good, abstract game.

The lovely wooden board is inscribed with a 5x5 matrix. There are three kinds of pieces: the elephants and rhinoceros figures are beautifully rendered, the elephants rearing on their hind legs, the rhinoceros sitting and looking like something out of a collection of Victorian grotesquerie. The other pieces look vaguely like mountains. And since the mountains are as big as the elephants and rhinoceros, the whole set conveys a sense of the fantastic.

One player plays the elephants (and moves first) the other, rhinoceroses.

The game begins with the three mountain pieces in a line in the center of the board. Players take turns doing one of the following: bringing a piece on to the board, taking a piece off the board, reorienting a piece, moving a piece (one space horizontally or vertically, in the direction being faced), or pushing other pieces. The object of the game is to be the first player to push a mountain off the board.

The pushing is where the conventions begin to get un-. If one of your pieces is facing a mountain, it can push the mountain in the direction in which it is facing. If two opposing pieces are facing each other, they cancel each other out. So neither can push or be pushed. If one your opponent's piece is in line with yours, and you are not facing it, you can get pushed. If two of your opponent's pieces are facing yours, you can also get pushed, even if you're facing them. In fact, you can have a whole bunch of your pieces (well, up to 5) in a line, all facing the wrong way, and one of your opponent's pieces, facing the right way, can push them all.

Then there are the rules about the edges of the board (all important, since that's where you're trying to push the mountains off of, as well as where your pieces can get pushed off and where they can be re-entered). Since they surround the board, it means that, unlike chess, checkers and the rest, you're not playing in any specific direction - a major convention-breaker, chock-full of strategic implications. And the subtle but significant consequences of being able to take pieces off the board and later bring them back into play on some other edge, add yet another chock-fullness to one's cup of strategic nuance.

Remarkably deep for a ten minute game. Remarkably lovely. Major FUN.

(Siam is available in the US via Fred Distribution, and in Europe through Ferti)

Sketchy

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:00:00 +0000

Sketchy is a drawing and guessing game for 4-8 people from Fundex Games. It is cooperative, competitive, challenging, and laugh-provoking. It makes you feel closer to the people you play with. It can get very intense. And if you win, you not only feel good about your brilliance, but you also realize that it really didn't matter who won. Playing Sketchy was so much fun, that it's all the reward you needed.

The components are simple enough - 8 golf pencils, playing/scoring pads (ample enough for many replays), a deck of cards, a die, and a wonderfully annoying, batteries-included, electronic timer (the kind that ticks faster and faster every 15 seconds).

Each card has a list of six different categories. For example:

Kinds of soup
Sports where individuals compete
Items on a teacher's desk
New England US states
Foods that are eaten on a stick
U-pick

Each page of the drawing/scoring pad gives you room to draw up to seven examples of the randomly chosen (by the roll of a die) category. Imagine that a category has been called, and the timer started. Now imagine everyone furiously drawing what they hope will be vividly clear illustrations of things that fit the category. When the timer runs inexorably out, and the annoying buzzer of finality finally buzzes, you use the column to the right of your drawings to name each of the objects you hopefully illustrated.

When you're finished, you sit with your partner for that round and compare your answers, looking only at each others' drawings (you fold over the column with the verbal descriptions of the objects so that your partner can't see them, and you can't change your mind about what your drawings actually depict). The timer is once more started, and you and your partner pro-tem decide which drawings on the two answer sheets are describing the same item. You can't talk about what the items are. You must make your judgment solely on the drawings. And then you take score - 2 points for each item that appeared on both of your sheets, less one point for each item incorrectly selected. ("That was supposed to be chicken? I thought it was an artichoke!")

You determine your scores. Write them down on a sheet somewhere. Change partners. And begin the next round. So see, even though you only score when you see eye-to-eye, as it were, with your partner, your cumulative score reflects your performance as an individual.

Designed by Brian S. Spence, Garrett J. Donner and Michael S. Steer, Sketchy is, by every measure, Major FUN. It is everything you'd want to see in a party game - absorbing, challenging, creative, intelligent, easy to learn, easy on time (a whole game can be played in 20 minutes), bringing people together, making people laugh.

PitchCar

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:50:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Caravan Game

noreply@blogger.com (Bernie) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:01:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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