Color Code is a challenging collection of 100 color and shape puzzles – varying in difficulty from not very all the way to OMG!

There are 18 transparent squares – nicely sized (more than 3 inches square), clear, and sturdy. A different, solid colored, geometric shape is printed on each square. There’s a tray for stacking the squares you are using to solve the puzzle. And there’s a spiral-bound booklet showing 100 different puzzles, of one of four different levels of difficulty (starter, junior, expert, and master). And yes, the solutions are compassionately included at the end of the booklet.

In each puzzle, you must first select which tiles you think you will need to solve the puzzle. And then figure out which way each tile should be positioned (they are square, so there are four different orientations), and in what sequence. The sequence part is frequently the killer to speak, because the art (and much of the delight) of solving each puzzle comes from figuring out how to use tiles to cover or reveal parts of the tiles below.

Designed by Kris Burm, and originally produced in Belgium, Color Code will engage your eye and mind in many, many hours of sometimes excruciating and often surprisingly delightful puzzling. Kids will probably cheat (look at the answers) a lot. Don’t let that worry you. They’ll still get a lot out of the puzzle, and, eventually, master it sufficiently to discover that the puzzles are more fun when you save the cheating for the very end.

Color Code is the second of the Smart Games collection to have received a Major Fun award. Well-made. Easy to understand. Inviting for even a five-year-old. Challenging to the grandparents of that five-year-old. Durable. Colorful. Unusual. Major, like we said, Fun.

Troy is a logic puzzle, actually a series of 60 logic puzzles in 5 different levels of challenge. It’s, as they say in the trade “toyetic.” It looks like a toy. It feels like a toy. And, like any good toy, it’s an invitation to fun.

The set consists of 4 different wall pieces – each wall a different color and shape; eight different knights (four on blue bases, four on red), a puzzle board (with indentations for the wall pieces and peg-holes for the knights), and the all-important, colorful, clear, spiral-bound, challenge-graded rule book (with solutions).

The walls are used to separate the knights. Blue knights must be surrounded on all sides by walls. Red knights must never be completely surrounded by walls. (This is a bit more chock-full of conceptual ramifications than it first appears – which explains why the first three puzzles use only the blue knights.)

Each puzzle is presented as an array of red and blue knights. Your challenge is to place the four walls so that the knights are surrounded (or not) according to the requirements. You will be, to say the least, amazed at how any different ways there are to position just four different wall pieces.

Troy is packaged for portability. You can, if you are careful enough, even play it in the car (the knights are pegged securely to the board, the wall pieces nestled in their grooves, understandably somewhat less securely – since they have to be moved around so much to solve the puzzle). There’s a cover and a wide elastic band to keep everything in place.

Troy is one of a large collection of challenging puzzles (originally produced in Belgium), the first to have received a Major Fun award. It was designed by Rof Peeters. Troy is available in the US from Smart Tangoes USA.

Scramblitz is a puzzle game. It’s a game, because you compete against players to be the first. Up to six players, as a matter of fact. It’s a puzzle because you have to solve it. It’s, in fact, primarily, you might say, a puzzle. A unique puzzle, you might notice. A very challenging puzzle, you will inevitably conclude.

There are six sets of 16 pattern tiles. These are called pattern tiles because they have a colorful pattern on one side of them. There are eight different such patterns, and two different color backs – black or white. This proves to be deliciously annoying.

There are 6 cardboard playing mats. They unfold to reveal a green area within which to fit your tiles.

Each set of pattern tiles is differentiated by a small shape in the center, which is punched out, making it easier for each player to determine whether or not she has a complete set. When you first open the box, you will discover each set of pattern tiles is already separated, and lovingly held together by a rubber band. These are good, these rubber bands. Useful. Don’t lose them.

There is also a set of 50 different puzzle cards. They are worth different points (indicated on the top and bottom border of each card). One of these is selected at random, turned over, and the competition begins.

Now to the sticking point. Upon inspection, you will notice that only some of the spaces on the puzzle card show colored patterns. The remainder are either black, white, or blank. So, you see, after you’ve placed all of your pattern tiles pattern-side-up as so clearly indicated by the puzzle card, and you go merrily on to fill the remainder of the spaces with black, or white tiles; you will inevitably notice that there are not enough of one or the other or both. Meaning that one or many of the pattern tiles you have so cleverly placed need(s) to be turned over. Which means that you’ll have to turn over one of the other black- or white-side-up pattern tiles that has the pattern on the tile you just turned over, if you catch my drift. Which results, unavoidably, in much frenzied flipping, unfortunate forgetting, much more frenzied flipping, and deep sighing once someone else solves the puzzle first, and secures the puzzle card as her own.

The game goes on until some extremely gifted player has been the first to collect enough puzzle cards to total 25 or more.

Designed by John A. Forte, Jr. Available from Mindware. Scramblitz comes in a tin box. The components (the tiles and puzzle cards) are of thick cardboard stock. The mats are made of glossy cardboard, thin enough to fold, sturdy enough to withstand years of hard-pressed play. Fun of excruciatingly major proportions.

You’d think that there’d be nothing more to say about Pajaggle, the already Keeper-award receiving puzzle game that has never left our living room. You’d think that the designers of Pajaggles would rest on their well-deserved Pajjagly laurels, and go on to make whole new games.

Well, what would you think if you learned that they have managed to make Pajaggle a better game than it already was?

How, you might wonder, is that possible?

By changing, subtly, but drastically, the design, not of the puzzle itself, but of the presentation.

Pajaggle, which formerly came to us in a lovely drawstring bag, now comes in a far more functional plastic box, the lid of which is the board for the game itself. And this lid/board is also different. The back of it is flexible – just flexible enough so that, should the need be dire enough, you can pop out any misplaced Pajaggle piece (a Pajiggle) without having to resort to using the new and improved Pajiggle piece-popping tool.

Being able to store the pieces and rules and timer and piece bag all in the remarkably functional box is part of the gift that this new Pajaggle presentation has to offer. It makes the award-winning puzzle/game it far more portable, because, instead of having to carefully place all the pieces on a drop cloth, you can keep the pieces in the box while you’re playing. Even when you’re not the only one playing. And with consummate ease, throw them back in the box when you’re finished.

Another minor change: the Pajaggle pieces now are outlined with raised ridges. They are also textured on one side. They are otherwise exactly the same as the original pieces. The ridges make the game easier for partially sighted people. The textured side invites people to play some of the two-set variations, using only one set.

We do recommend that you consider purchasing at least one additional set of pieces. There are more games to play. Extra sets are available for a most reasonable price. And there’s room enough in the box to house them with ease.

A great way to Major Fun’s heart is through his stomach. Unfortunately that’s due to a gastric bypass surgery gone horribly wrong. BUT another great way to his heart is through elegant design. We at Major Fun reward games that are easy to learn, and that means that some types of games and some game mechanics come back to the party in many different outfits. Nothing wrong with this. Fun is fun.

Gamewright’s City Square Off is a competitive tiling game for two people (or two teams). Each player starts with a board, 21 tiles (much as you would find in Tetris variants), and a starting tile that is shaped like a city (each city tile is different). The city tile goes in the middle of each board and a deck of 21 cards (a card for each of the tiles) is shuffled. The top card is revealed and each player places that tile on their board. The player who runs out of space on his or her board loses.

We’ve seen games like this before, but City Square Off is compact, sturdy, and visually stunning. The game gives you 4 city tiles to use as starting pieces and each is unique AND they seem to represent 4 different periods of time and architecture. The nine-by-nine grid is sturdy, rigid, grey plastic, which admittedly sounds less than appealing and yet the bright orange and green tiles fit perfectly into the grid where they almost fluoresce against the grey surface. Everything fits into a compact box.

Games are quick, intuitive, and easy to learn. The designers also include several variants that shake things up. Start with the city tile ANYWHERE on the board. Don’t use the cards and each player races to see who can fill up all the squares on his or her board first. The variants suggest many other possibilities. Each game is fun and immediately replayable.

It’s Major Fun. Check it out.

2 players or 2 teams. Ages 8+

City Square Off  by Ted Cheatham. © 2011 Gamewright.

You throw the five letter dice into the conveniently felt-lined dice-throwing area. The letters appear: U S R S R. Though you only need to use three letters, you come up with the awe-worthy “RHINOCEROUS” – which uses all 5 cubes (scoring bragging rights) and earns you the 10+ chip. Yes, it would have been even better had this been the second or so turn, and you had exactly that roll and the category had been “wildlife.” But that, clearly, is neither here, nor there.

You collect your chip. Turn it over. And reveal the “Home Sweet Home” category, which entitles you and your fellow players to “any word related to things you can do or find in your home.” Can do or find. A bit generous for your typical Home Sweet Home category. But all the more welcome, eh? You toss the dice. The letters appear: P R R F U. And the race is on.

“REFRIGERATOR” you say? Good enough. More than good enough, even though you didn’t use all five letter cubes, as its 12 delightful letters earn you the right to pick up that most valuable of all 10+ chip, and to be the category-giver and the dice-tosser for the next round.

And so it tensely goes, players displaying verbal uncanniness, gathering chips, chip-after-chip-after-chip, until all the chips are used, or some pre-arranged score is reached or until you all can’t wait any longer to decide who the winner really is.

And no, you don’t get any extra points for using all the cubes. And yes, you can make it the rule that some people have to use more cubes than others, like, for example, because they’re younger, or because they keep on winning. But no, all you really have to use is any three cubes. And further no, it doesn’t matter if your word is longer than someone else’s if that particular someone else has already declared her particular word.

You can run out of a certain kind of chip. In that case, the winning player can take any chip. This adds a strategic wrinkle, if you’re interested in wrinkled strategies. If you can exhaust even the lowest scoring, four-letter-word chips, all the four letter words you come up with after that can earn you the 10+ chip, or whatever highest value chip remains. What this means is that, given the circumstances, proving your personal brilliance might not be the smartest move. Ah, so much like life, eh?

In addition to the dice there are seven stacks of chips, each stack worth from 4 to 10 points (indicating how many letters the winning word must have), each chip showing the score value on one side, and the category on the other. There’s one “Create a Theme” category which adds the opportunity for much interpersonal introspection and the opportunity to play compassionately or competitively depending on your whim and/or wisdom.

There are several other ways, in addition to  your clever use of the “make a theme” category,  you can fine tune the game to match the needs and interests of the players. As described, you can increase the challenge by making it the rule that everyone, or just the winning player, has to use more cubes in their word. In like manner, you can decrease the challenge. You can be more lenient in your definition of what meets a particular category (OK, you can use fictional characters in solving the Famous People category), or you can be more, shall we say, literal (only Russian authors). You can make the game shorter (by playing for a specific score or number of chips) or longer (playing for two or more rounds). This kind of flexibility significantly increases your chance to have a good game with almost anyone. And yes, you can play in teams.

Spell it!, from Blue Orange Games, was designed by Thierry Denoual, who also designed, among many other games, the Major Fun award-winning Yamslam, which also uses a similarly ingeniously designed, self-contained tin container to house dice, felt-covered dice throwing area, and seven stacks of chips, and yet, even more ingeniously, turns out to be an equally award-worthy, yet completely different game, entirely.

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.

The first thing that struck us about Acuity was how well-made it was. Seventy large (2-3/4″), surprisingly thick, square cardboard tiles; each colorfully illustrated with a selection of 4 images: green diamonds, yellow stars, blue circles and red squares, all lovingly presented in a plastic tray with 9 compartments. It made you think that someone believed this game was destined to become a family treasure.

Then we read the rules – a single, two-sided sheet, well-illustrated, succinctly written, that explained not only the game, but 5 variations and some hints for engaging young players (the game is recommended for 2 to 6 people, 6 and older). Clearly, Acuity had been played, and tested, and refined, and loved – a lot.

To play Acuity, you arrange 36 of the tiles in a 6×6 grid. You stack the remaining face-down in a pile of any degree of neatness you find sufficiently pleasing. The game begins when the first player turns over one of the face-down tiles. Everybody immediately begins scanning the array, looking for a match. Here’s the thing: the match that you’re looking for is not on any one tile, but on two (the “edge match”), or maybe four (the “corner match”) adjacent tiles. And here’s the other thing: just in case you can’t find a match, you can conceptually turn a tile (1/4 turn only, clock or counter clock-wise, please). Which means that to find a match you not only have to look for the match, in all four possible orientations, but also imagine what the result would be if an adjacent tile were turned!

The first person to find the match gets the tile. If no one has found the match, anyone can call out “challenge” – indicating that she believes there is no match to be found regardless of one’s visual dexterity. Everyone else then has 30 seconds. If no match is found, the challenging player gets the tile. If someone else finds the match, he not only gets the tile, but gets to take one of the challenging player’s tiles. O, the humanity!

Acuity is what you might call exquisite fun. The challenge to perception and imagination is engagingly, delightfully deep. Variations include solitaire and cooperative versions, playing for points or competing head-to-head by distributing the tiles evenly to the players and their racing to see who can match all their tiles first.

Acuity, from Fat Brain Toy Co. is available from FatBrainToys.com and local specialty toy stores.  The game was designed by BlueMatter Games.

When it come to beautiful, well-made jigsaw puzzles, few companies have been able to match the quality of Ravensburger puzzles. The pieces are cleanly cut, unique, and made of thick, linen-finished, glare-free cardboard stock. The prints are vividly colored and in sharp focus. And the adult puzzle collection ranges from 300 to 32,000 pieces.

Ravensburger uses what it calls its “Softclick-Technology” to guarantee a “100% interlocking mechanism for the world’s most optimal fit of individually formed puzzle pieces, resulting in an absolutely smooth puzzle.” Instead of snapping together, pieces fit so well that they seem to glide into each other, effortlessly. And there’s no denying that the experience of putting a Ravensburger puzzle together is satisfying and rewarding.

But the fun of putting together a good jigsaw puzzle is only somewhat dependent on any of those factors. Often, the image itself – the detail, the complexity, the variety – is what determines how challenging the experience will be, and how fun.

The Vintage Flora puzzle is a very good example of a puzzle that is especially pleasing to solve, and just challenging enough to keep you going until you’ve placed the very last piece. Notice that the puzzle is divided into 24 squares, each (except for the last) devoted to a different letter of the alphabet, each with a different and highly textured background, each with its own border. For those of us who like to put the edges of a puzzle together before we fill in the rest, solving Vintage Flora is very close to an apotheosis.

Though we recommend Vintage Flora especially to the casual puzzle solver, the quality of the image and design makes it something that anyone who likes a good puzzle would appreciate.

Ubongo Extreme (one of several versions of the Ubongo puzzle/game) is a game for 2-4 players who are racing each other to solve puzzle cards showing different arrays of hexagons.

There are 4 different colors, and the pieces from each color are numbered from 1-13. When you first get the game, the pieces get punched out, with die-cut, chadless elegance, from a single sheet.

The “puzzle cards” (54 of them) are two-sided. One side shows a puzzle that requires 3 pieces to solve, the other, 4. Which of your pieces you use to solve the puzzle is indicated in one of the corners of the puzzle card. In each corner a different combination of pieces is required, depending on which color you are using. So, you get 4 different puzzles on each side, and two different levels of difficulty.

You also get a baggie of different color plastic jewels, an approximately 2-minute sand timer, and 4 large hexagonal tokens. You’re going to need to read the rules to figure out what to do with these pieces. However, what you’ll find especially delightful and inviting is that you don’t have to read any of the rules to start having puzzling fun. This, alone, makes the game worthy of collective recognition and delight. It’s actually self-explanatory. Pick a set of pieces. Pick a card. Decide whether you want to solve the . 3- or 4-piece side. And, when you’re all ready, go for it!

Later on, when you’re ready to get more or less competitive about the whole thing, you can read the rules, which, it turns out, are well-written and illustrated.

The 4 tokens and 9 of each color gem are placed in the lovely, black, drawstring, gem-and-token bag. Nine sapphires and 9 pieces of amber are placed in the center of the playing area, the rest go into the bag. Players select their token from the gem-and-token bag, which determines what color pieces they are to use.

The gems are used to keep score. There are 4 different colors: 9 rubies and 9 emeralds, 18 sapphires and 18 pieces of amber. The sapphires are worth 3 points, and presented to the first player to, well, Ubongo (i.e. announce and demonstrate th g – a gem that can be worth from 1 to 4 points. The second player gets an amber gem (a one-pointer) and a free pick. The third and fourth players each get a pick from the bag.

Players each pick their puzzle card. Turn the timer over, and the competition begins.

Everyone is rewarded for solving the puzzle before the time runs out. The first and second players to succeed get more, but the luck of the draw determines how much more. The element of luck keeps people from taking things too personally, and makes the whole thing that much more fun. Since each player can choose to try for a 3- or 4-piece puzzle, each has significant control over the amount of challenge. Given this and the scoring mechanism, it is easy to fine tune the game to help level the playing field. Players who are exceptionally adept can be encouraged to select only the more challenging side of the puzzle cards. Players who have too many more points can be consider not drawing a second time from the gem bag.

Designed by Grzegorz Rejchtman, Ubongo Extreme is one version of a series of Ubongo games available from Z-Man games. Everything about the game is well-designed – the rules, the box, the pieces. There are even little ziplock baggies included so that you can store the sorted piece sets between games. Ah, the sheer, carefully honed fun of it all!