Think-ets comes with a variety of games you can play with the included gewgaws and trinkets. These games suggest an infinite number of variations and new games that can be created by a fertile mind. Too many for the space we have here and a big part of why Think-ets (in all its iterations) is Major Fun.

But despite all the games that can be played when you open one of these packages, I’m not going to talk about the games. Instead I’m going to talk about what makes Think-ets such a great toy as opposed to a game.

Pause and regroup. Let’s get some of the basics out of the way.

Think-ets come in a variety of packages but they all contain an assortment of trinkets. The one I am currently looking at is the “Genius” edition. A tin box (common size for gum or mints) contains 15 small trinkets such as an arrowhead, a polar bear, a compass (functional), a tomato, and a twelve-sided die: the kind of assortment you would find at the bottom of a toy chest or under the cushions in the family couch. The box also contains a small pencil, a pad of paper, and an instruction booklet. The booklet suggests about a dozen games that you can play with the Think-ets but…

A quick story. When I handed my daughter (9) and one of her best friends (11) a couple of bags of Think-ets, one of the first things they did was arrange the pieces. My daughter went for shape and color and her friend by alphabetical order. They created other patterns and spent half an hour or more just moving the pieces into lines. This actually seemed to fit some of the games mentioned in the instructions, so I suggested one of the other games and they shrugged without much enthusiasm but went right on playing with the pieces. They soon left the table and went off to incorporate the Think-ets into a rather complicated game of school they had going upstairs.

My guess is that most people will experience Think-ets in the way my daughter and her friend did. They are fascinating toys. They are vehicles for imaginative play, and in this capacity they are incredibly engaging. For a game to work—for anything to be considered a game in the first place—the players must agree to follow a set of rules; a prescribed set of behaviors must be followed. A game is a common set of behaviors. By contrast, a toy might suggest methods of play, but a toy is not limited to a single set of actions. You want your cowboy action figure to dive to Atlantis? Fine. You want it to actually be a dog instead of a human? Sure. That dog has a pet spider that looks a lot like my car keys? That’s great…

Hey! Gimme my keys!

Think-ets are Major Fun not because of the games that are included in the package, but because the collection of trinkets lends itself so well to the imagination. We made up stories about the pieces. We stacked them and lined them up and shook them in the tin. We scattered them across the table and made up games that lasted two moves before we changed the game. And then changed it again. The sundry items are wonderful to hold in your hand or move around a table top. They inspire stories and games and conversations and (best of all)

Fun.

1 or more players. Ages 8+

Think-ets designed by Randy Compton and Julie Lake. © 2007 by Think-a-lot Toys.

You, of course, remember the original, Major Fun award-winning Q-BA-MAZE. And you were probably wondering what could have happened to this marvel of marble-dropping merriment. Wonder no more. Or, wonder again at the wonderment now once again available thanks to Mindware‘s new release of Q-BA-MAZE 2.0? Similar in every way to the original Q-BA-MAZE, yet significantly more affordable.

Q-BA-MAZE 2.0 comes in two different packages. The “starter sets” include a more than ample 36 lovely acrylic pieces and 14 steel marbles. There are two sets which are identical except for color. One set features cool colors (green, blue and clear), the other warm (red, yellow and clear). And the there’s the “Big Box,” which combines both of the starter sets into one gloriously absorbing multi-marble-fall construction kit.

Each set includes three different block styles to choose from (nine bottom-exit cubes, 18 single-exit cubes, and, my favorite, nine double-exit cubes). These double-exit cubes feature a truly ingenious structure which often makes the marble hesitate for an unknowable period just before it makes up its steely mind as to which exit to take. When you drop a whole bunch of marbles into your construct at the same time, the varying delay creates precisely enough suspenseful randomness to give you a different result each time.

There are also two ways each of the blocks go together, which, combined with all the other transparently blocky affordances, turns out to be precisely enough flexibility to engage you in many, many hours of creatively constructive engagement. Furthermore, there are no dead ends. No mater how complex your construct, the marbles will inevitably find their way out, one way or an other.

I asked the designer to explain more about the improvements in the new version. He generous answer will probably tell you more than you want to know, but, in case you wondered:

ONGOING ROLE

This new partnership between Q-BA-MAZE and MindWare is a great match. It contributes all of their skill and experience in the production, distribution and customer service side of brainy toys, while it frees time for me as the inventor to dream up new ideas.

I have always thought of the cubes as the base of an ever-expanding marble run construction system. Now that vision is poised to become a reality. I am currently working on half a dozen new Q-BA-MAZE extensions and am so excited for these to get out into the hands of creative kids everywhere!

ENGINEERING THE NEW CUBES

The engineering of the new cubes was the first step in the partnership with MindWare.

Since we were making new molds, it made sense to take the opportunity to let the design evolve and improve upon the original.

Q-BA-MAZE cubes have both “bottom pegs” and “side joints.” I’ll discuss these separately below. Some of the points are pretty technical and difficult to state succinctly.

BOTTOM PEGS

A: BOTTOM PEG SHAPE: If you compare the original Q-BA-MAZE cube and the new Q-BA-MAZE 2.0 cube, you will see that bottom pegs were originally cylindrical but are now more like rounded squares with the greater roundness facing the outside corners.

This change in shape has two effects:

STACKED FOUR PEG CONNECTION:

When stacking Q-BA-MAZE cubes vertically, they are meant to be stacked with a “four peg connection” and not a “two peg connection”. The rounded outside corners of the new bottom pegs give a visual and tactile cue to the user that the “four peg connection” is the way to go and the “two peg connection” is like putting a square peg in a round hole.

The original cylindrical bottom pegs provided no such visual or tactile cue to avoid the “two peg connection.” Q-BA-MAZE structures are most stable when relying on “four peg connections” and “side joint” connections and avoiding “two peg connections.”

When cubes are horizontally offset, the way to connect them is with the “side joints” which are super stable (ie the joint is nearly 3/4″ tall on a 1 1/2″ tall piece and thus does a great job of resisting rotation in all directions). The new squared off look of the bottom pegs, in addition to the diagrams in MindWare’s new instruction pamphlets that come with each set, will help ensure that people learn to build with Q-BA-MAZE using the stable “four peg connection” and using the super stable “side joints” rather than “two peg connections”

As this new bottom peg design points people toward this most stable way of building, they will create more stable structures.

2) ROTATION RESISTANCE CONTRIBUTED BY THE BOTTOM PEGS IN SIDE-JOINED CUBES:

Take two single-exit cubes and then attach them using the side joint of the upper cube so that the side joint of the lower cube is immediately under the upper cube. You will notice that the upper cube rests on top of the lower cube’s side joint.

Now if you compare the original cubes and the new Q-BA-MAZE 2.0 cubes in this configuration, try rotating the upper cube clockwise or counter-clockwise in the vertical plane of the abutting faces of the two cubes.

You will notice that the new cubes are resisting this rotation for some reason and not “popping out” the way the original cubes do under similar rotational force.

Look closely at the side joint of the lower cube when you are doing this rotation. You will notice that the “bottom peg” eventually comes into contact with the side joint of the lower cube. Due to the squared off nature of the new bottom pegs, the bottom pegs of the upper cube engage with and do not slip past the side joint of the lower cube during this rotation.

Do the same inspection with the original cubes and you’ll see that the cylindrical bottom pegs roundness makes them slip past the side joint of the lower cube during this rotation.

This greater resistance to rotation is helpful especially when making Q-BA-MAZE structures with longer cantilevers and for holding these cantilevers in a more stable and orthogonal orientation.

B: BOTTOM PEG HEIGHT: The new bottom pegs are a little taller than the old bottom pegs – so they sink a little deeper into a cube below.

SIDE JOINTS

SIDE JOINT FIT: The side joints of the new Q-BA-MAZE 2.0 have a more uniformly snug fit than the original due to increases in the draft angle of the cube walls and side joint. The increased draft angle makes it easier when tuning the production mold to get that “just right” Goldilocks balance in which the cubes are neither too loose nor too tight.

Individually and together, these engineering improvements to both the side joints and bottom pegs provide even greater stability than the first generation Q-BA-MAZE cubes.

What’s more, all the rich library of detailed plans created by the designer of the original Q-BA-MAZE are still available, online, on Andrew Comfort’s Q-BA-MAZingly generous website.

LEGO is an elemental media of play: stick, ball, box, and LEGO. It is impossible for me to think about my childhood without LEGO present. Colorful blocks. An ingenious locking mechanism. Simple pieces that can be combined into vast worlds. I am constantly amazed with the ways children can expand on the idea. I am also impressed with how the designers at LEGO suggest new and engaging ways for children and adults to think about this toy.

LEGO Champion adds another magnificent, Major Fun title to the company’s growing catalogue of board games AND it succeeds by utilizing the most basic piece of the LEGO universe: the 2×4 block.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed when I see all the different pieces that comprise the LEGO universe. Many are highly specialized pieces that were created for the themed sets. LEGO Champion eschews the custom pieces and delights the competitors with challenges that are based on only simple blocks. The game consists of a simple, rectangular game board; 8 LEGO people (each a different color); a LEGO Dice; and lots of 2×4 blocks (matching the colors of the LEGO people). The playing board must be constructed but it is very simple and clear instructions are included. Preparing the game for the first time didn’t take more than a few minutes.

Play moves clockwise. On his or her turn, each player rolls the LEGO Dice. Each face of the die is a solid color (red, yellow, purple, blue, orange, and green) that represents a type of challenge. When a color is rolled, that color of brick is placed on the game board, the player advances to that color, and a challenge ensues.

• If green is rolled, JUMP AHEAD.  The player simply advances to a green block and stops.
• If red is rolled, the game is ON TARGET. The LEGO Dice is placed on the table and each player throws one LEGO brick at it. Closest wins.
• Blue is CODEBREAKER. The roller puts three blocks together and the other players have to guess the order by asking only yes or no questions.
• BLUFFING BRICKS is on orange. Every player grabs three bricks WITHOUT looking at them. Players bid on how many of one color are held in the hands.
• Yellow TOPPLE TOWER was a big favorite. The roller places one brick on the table. The next person must snap together 2 bricks and balance them on the first. Play continues with each person snapping together one more block than the person before.
• But purple SPEED BUILDER stole the show. The roller creates a sculpture of 8 bricks (one of each color) while the other players close their eyes. When the sculpture is revealed, the other players race to be the first to copy the creation.

The game is wonderfully customizable and the directions (oh those elegant, well-organized directions!!) encourage players to make up new challenges. The LEGO Dice can be modified in many ways—the game comes with four other faces that can be swapped onto the die (the bowling challenge was a blast). We were coming up with all sorts of games and variations as we played. Some of ours might turn out to be duds, but LEGO provides so many Major Fun examples that given a little time, families and friends will begin to accumulate their own personal favorites.

LEGO Champion really takes me back to what makes LEGO so vital and fun in the first place. It’s the same principle that often makes the box more fun than the toy in which it was wrapped. People want to play, and all they need are a few versatile pieces and some suggestions. Once they get going, the fun endures and grows.

LEGO Champion was designed by Cephas Howard and Jesper Nielsen. It is © 2011 by LEGO.

Tell Tale is a story-building game using a deck of 60, two-sided, circular cards. There’s a different, evocative drawing on each side of each card.

To play Tell Tale, you use some or all of the deck, turning cards over one at a time, weaving each image into something like a story, or a dream, or maybe a myth or a fable, or a joke or riddle, or a stream-of-conscious dadaist work of near art.

You can play by yourself, you can play together, you can play with kids as young as five, you can play with as many as eight, and maybe even more.

There are two things that contribute to making this game so much fun. OK, maybe three.

First, the art. Hervé Gourdet’s drawings are clear and easy to interpret, and, whenever possible, humorous; but the colors are often dreamlike, conveying a hint of emotion.

Then there’s the two-sidedness. Some cards have related, but opposite images on each side (a heart on one, a broken heart on the other); some are just related (a rainstorm on one, lightning on the other). And then there’s one side of one card that simply says “the end.”  This not only gives you twice as many images, but also everlasting surprise. All of the games that you play (there are four of them described in the rules) involve turning cards over one at a time, so you have no idea what image you’re going to get until you get it.

Then there’s the roundness of the cards and the wonderfully colorful tin they can be so easily carried around in, which have nothing to do with the game play, but help make the whole thing more endearing, more like something you want to carry around with you everywhere.

Wordsmiths, rejoice, for you have at last been granted your game. Assemble your friends (three, at least; the more, the most definitely merrier). Assemble your wits and your sense of humor. Assemble your word parts.

To play Faux-Cabulary is to find oneself suddenly thrust into an intensely focused wordsmithy, where one’s inner wordsmith is challenged to cavort creatively whilst competing somewhat anonymously for the favor of the Wordmeister who determines which player (or team of players) has most successfully forged the perfect verbal coin, so to speak.

Faux-Cabulary is an ingeniously silly word game.  One might even say “intelligently” when it comes to describing the silly that Faux-Cabulary brings into being – what one might call hyper-silly-icious, were one of that disposition, and should one find those particular word parts on three of one’s collection of word part cubes.

If one were counting, one would find 21 of such cubes in one’s Faux-Cabulary set, each face of each cube imprinted with a different word part. Along with the aforementioned cubes, one would also find 180, two-sided definition cards, each of which is so cannily worded so as to cause the silliness to leap several quanta. I exemplify: “That squishy, icy-cold last cherry tomato in the salad bar,” and “The aftertaste of a burp,” and “To constantly spend too much time in the rest room,” and “A person who gets pumped-up by listening to easy-listening music.”

One would similarly find six “cube covers.” These are cleverly designed cube-hiders, assemblers and conveyors, made of thin, but sturdy plastic, which one uses to: 1) hide one’s cubes from view as one is determining precisely which of the six faces of each of one’s three (or conceivably two or even one) word-part cubes to employ, in which order; 2) to cover one’s assembled cubes and 3) to convey one’s assembly to the current “Wordmeister” (a different Wordmeister meistering each round of play).

Key to playing Faux-Cabulary is to recognize that the goal is not to be “correct” (since that is impossible), but to know your Wordmeister well enough to be the whose “word” gets picked. Hence the humor, the outrageousness, the verbal shenanigans, the sheer, lovely, friendly silliness.

The game is designed by Matt Nuccio (click the link to read about the evolution of the design), graphics are by Design Edge, John Kovalic, and Cathleen Quinn-Kinney. This wonderfully fun, creative game is available, as one might guess, from Out of the Box Publishing.

Kids who like to color sometimes grow up into teens who like to color who sometimes grow up to adults who like to color. If you are fortunate enough to have one of the former, and be one of the latter, you will come to treasure the many opportunities for gentle, satisfying, quiet, relaxed interaction as you explore together the rich collection of coloring books from Mindware. Though you may very well want to keep them all to yourself.

These coloring books feature designs that are complex enough to appeal to adults as well as older children (school-age and above). The act of coloring is pleasing in itself. The opportunity to work with a complex design and decide what colors you want to use where adds a dimension of creativity as well as discovery. As a group activity for elder adults or families, as a solitaire activity to accompany listening to music or the radio or watching TV, as a bedside or travel companion, good coloring books like these can bring many hours of quiet satisfaction.

Mindware publishes an impressive variety of unique coloring books. In all their coloring books, each poster-worthy page is printed on one-side, on high-density paper. There are many different collections. We’ll try to give you a taste of each.

The Color Counts series (if you buy both, you get a free set of 24, good-quality markers) struck us as having the most play potential of the current collection. Each contains one- and two-page drawings. Eleven of the drawings come in two versions. In the first, the spaces are numbered (the color code specified on the perforated margin), in the second, they are not. This gives the colorist an opportunity to color-by-number and still experience an almost always surprising result (o, my gosh, it’s a Panda bear!), or, in the case of the unnumbered version, to color-by-whim. Having two different versions to play with opens a variety of opportunities for further play. You can solve the by-number version first and then try the by-whim version and see how closely you can come (without referring to the solved drawing) to the “correct” version. Or vice versa. Or give one version to one artist or team, and the other to a different artist or team, and see how much their interpretations differ.

Mindware does a brilliant job in identifying existing art forms that lend themselves so well to the art and design of coloring books. Take, for example, Mosaics. Of course, now that you think about it, every mosaic is made up of small bits of color – exactly what you’d most want to experience in a coloring book format. There are currently four books in the Mosaics series, each giving the colorist a wonderful opportunity to immerse himself in the art of a different culture: Classical, Celtic, Aboriginal and Aztec. Each book leads to yet another immersion in complex and very different relationships betwen color and design.

The Illumination and Lights series both focus on yet another art form perfect for coloring – stained glass windows. Each of the four books in the Illumination series and six in the Lights is printed on vellum-like paper, black areas surrounding translucent segments, heightening the illusion of stained glass. Taping any of the 16 images in each book onto your windows completes the illusion. The shapes that need to be colored are large enough to be easily colored, but the more controlled you are when you color them in, and especially when you reach the edges of each shape, the more satisfying the results.

The Design (six books) and Scapes (four books) series are more abstract. Each books includes two copies of twelve different works. Most of the books include a a range of designs, from the very complex designs, requiring lots of patient coloring of some very small areas, to the relatively simple. Because they are more abstract, the colorist has more freedom from the constraints of reality, and thus more of an opportunity to express and explore her sense of color and balance.

The Creature Camouflage (six books, each with 23 unique images) and Transformation (four books, each with 12 unique images) series are a bit of a departure. They are the least abstract in the Mindware coloring book library, but by no means any less innovative or challenging. In the Camouflage series, there are hidden creatures in each image. Depending on how you color them, you can make them very easy to find, or just about impossible. The Transformation series is Escher-like: tessellating designs that repeat and evolve. Again, depending on your approach, you can choose to ignore or accentuate the transformations.

When you go to the Mindware to learn more about their coloring books, you’ll also find a sample page for every book, free for the download. This gives you a good way for you to taste each book and determine its suitability. What makes one coloring book more suitable than another is really a question of taste, as each book offers its own unique, well-balanced experience. The only misleading thing about the site is that it  describes these books as “Coloring Books for Children.” We have found all their coloring books to be as appropriate for adults as they are for children.

Drawing games can open a group up to discussions, but these are usually of the “What do you mean this is OBVIOSLY the mutiny on the Bounty!!” variety. A lot of sound and fury, blah blah blah.

Identik takes the conversation in a slightly more nuanced direction.

The game is less about a person’s artistic ability and more about a player’s ability to quickly and accurately describe a picture. And the pictures are fun. Surreal. Absurd. Funny. FUN. One player acts as the “Art Director” while everyone else is an Artist. The Director has 90 seconds to describe the picture and the Artists draw what they hear.

Now the twist. At the bottom of each drawing, invisible to the Director and the Artists alike, are ten sentences that point out various details of the picture. These details are how the artists and the director are scored. For instance, if the picture was of a house, one of the sentences might read something to the effect of, “There must be at least three windows visible on the house.” The Director did not know that this would be an important detail. The Artists also do not know which details might be important.

Drawing what someone says is fun. Trying to cram every detail of an absurd little cartoon into 90 seconds is frustrating and fun. But the judging at the end (and the ensuing comparison conversations) is what sets this game apart as Major Fun. Because everyone hears the descriptions differently the pictures drawn by the Artists can be surprisingly, hilariously different. This has something to do with the Director, but it is like a game of Telephone played with pencil and paper drawings. But sometimes the accuracy is spooky.

The rules are quick and well designed. Players pick up on the scoring and pacing with ease. My one concern is replayability (Yes, spell-check, it is a word). The picture cards are two-sided, but once a player has experienced a card, that player will have a definite advantage over other players. This is perhaps a minor issue because there are a lot of cards, but players should refrain from browsing through the deck in order to fully appreciate the surprises at the end of each round.

William Jacobson and Amanda Kohout share credit for the game and artistic design of Identik. © 2006 by Asmodee.

William Bain, Games Taster

As you no doubt know, Rory’s Story Cubes has proven itself to be the kind of game the Major Fun award is here to let you know about. It’s easy to learn, engaging, it brings people together, encourages people to think and laugh together, it involves creativity and communication, empathy and collaboration.  It’s easy to store, easy to take everywhere, well-made, well-packaged, creative fun for everyone who plays it – young, old, young and old together.

After playing and playing Rory’s Story Cubes – with children and adults and younger children and older adults, in living rooms and dining rooms and restaurants and school rooms, we have all come to the same conclusion. It’s a Keeper.

It’s the kind of game that you’ll want to keep, so that you can share it with others.

It’s the kind of game you can make your own.

There are many ways to play it. The package gives us a good sample of some of them.  More can be found on the Rory’s Story Cubes website. The best are those that you invent together, with whomever you happen to be playing with. You don’t even have to make a story with them. Maybe you can take turns putting them in order and then explaining to everyone why you organized them that way. Or roll a die and explain to everyone why what you rolled is the most meaningful thing in the universe, and then take turns, each player rolling the another die and explaining why it is even more meaningful than the other. Or, roll three dice and then roll a fourth and explain how that die connects all three. Or, using three dice, take turns making up a story that is as close as you can get to being the opposite interpretation of what the three dice stand for.

In other words, it’s an opportunity for you to create your own games – free-form, open-ended, make-up-your-own-rules-as-you-go-along story-telling fun.

It’s a tool as much as it is a toy. You can introduce it to lighten people’s hearts and get them talking to each other. You can use it to break the tension during a meeting, to change the mood at a games party, to bring people together after dinner, to give people something constructive to do together.

The more people you play it with, the more ways you’ll find to play it. Rory’s Story Cubes is not even a game – it’s an invitation to genuine, creative, shared fun – the kind of fun that feels as good after you finish with it as it did when you were playing.

Bendaroos might very well remind you of another terrific art toy – one that also consists of lengths of wax-dipped yarn in a variety of colors. If you know of that particularly terrific art toy, you are already, no doubt, deeply enamored of all the many creative uses to which this construction toy can be so creatively put – the animals and vehicles and flowers and devices of many colors that one can make, without getting dirty or requiring much more than an inspiring illustration or two and a sufficient number and variety of color choices.

So why should you consider getting Bendaroos and not the other? Actually, there’s no reason at all. Except it’s good to know that there’s a choice, and that there are niggling comparisons to be made, and that no matter which one you buy, you will no doubt want to try the other, and you won’t be disappointed at all.

This review, therefore, will confine itself to the explication of a particular game we played with Bendaroos – the Megapack, of course, in which we found 42 red, yellow, green, blue, hot pink, neon yellow, neon blue, and neon green pieces, along with 41 each of white, black, orange, and neon red. That’s 12 different colors, which means that if you had as many as 12 people playing, there’d be a different color for each player, which would add significantly to the jolliness of it all.

We drew, so to speak, our inspiration from a famous Dada-type game called Exquisite Corpse, one version of which being most illustratively illustrated in the following video:

Exquisite Corpse Drawing from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo

We gave each player a different color. Simultaneously, we each made something (anything) out of our Bendaroo. After that, we each passed our creation to the player on our left (though we could have easily passed to the player on the right, but some arbitrary direction needed to be established for the duration of the game). We then added another piece to the figure we just received. And then passed the two joined pieces to the next player, again to the left. And on, and on, until we finally received the construction that included our original piece. We then each decided what to name the collectively created work of art, and took turns presenting the finished work to the group, in our best art-presentation-like manner. And we nearly Bendarooed over in laughter. In deed we nearly did.

All of which is to say that, given a bit of playful creativity, Bendaroos can provide many hours of Major Fun to pretty much everybody.

Dixit is a Major Fun award-winning party game. We summed up our review as follows: “Designed by Jean-Louis Roubira, with art by Marie Cardouat, Dixit invites strategic thinking, sensitivity and, most importantly, creativity. And for people who possess all these strengths, Dixit proves to be Major FUN.”

Dixit 2 is essentially an expansion set of 84 more beautifully and evocatively illustrated cards. As such, it makes a Dixit even more compelling, successfully resolving any concern that, as a result of repeated play, the game might get “old,” the players becoming too familiar with the collection of images.

The fully expanded Dixit takes the game to a new level. The key to playing the game is to be able to give a hint as to which image you’ve selected in such a way that at least one player, but not all, will be able to identify it in a line up of other images. With the fully expanded Dixit, and so many visionary images to choose from, the game inspires new levels of creativity and subtlety.  There’s such a wealth of such wonderfully imagined fantasies, that somehow the game itself becomes something to treasure.

On the other hand, if you don’t have Dixit, and know someone who does, you can learn the rules and make the rest yourself. Though I strongly suspect you’ll eventually buy the orginal Dixit game, just for the extra cards.

Dixit has been around long enough, and has proven fun enough to be written about extensively on Board Game Geek. There’s a treasury of variants and quirky commentaries to further add to your ultimate Dixit delights.

Dixit 2 is at least as Major , FUN-wise, as the original game, and both together should prove to be most party- and family-worthy for quite some time.