You can play Super Shooter Basketball any way you want. You can play by yourself. You can play with a friend. You can play with a couple of friends. You can play for score. You can make it easy on yourself and put your shooter close to the basket. And, because, when smartly struck, that little super shooter can shoot one of those little balls, what, 15 feet, you can make it a shot worthy of both peer and parental praise. You can shoot from the side. You can shoot from the other side. You can print out a Super Shooter Basketball court and see how many different places you can shoot from.

So, OK, so the balls are a choking hazard if you’re, like, 3. And so kids like it, and some kids really like it, and some of them can probably get really good at it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t play it, too. Maybe after they’re in bed. (My wife, who was captain of her high school basketball team o so many years ago, played with it for a half-hour before I took it away from her.)

There’s some assembly required, but everything snaps together, and the picture on the box is all you need to guide you through the few steps needed. And after you’re finished playing with it you can fold the backboard down, if you want, and store it away, if somebody tells you you have to.

There’s a lot of fun here. Some of it major. You can spend a lot of time practicing, developing skill and maybe even a trick shot or two. It’s made well enough to take all that play. And if you loose one of those well made, durable, but light little balls, well, there’s still two more.

Super Shooter Basketball is one of a series of Big Little Games from Patch Products.

Major Fun ribbon for using pirates to rescue an old soggy game.

I’ve mentioned before how Go Fish is one of those games that kids of a certain age find irresistible and adults often equate with that sound an amplifier makes when you walk up to it with the microphone. But small changes make big differences and ARGH! Uses the Go Fish mechanic to create an engaging press-your-luck game. Players collect treasure cards that are spread face down on the table. On your turn you draw until you decide to stop OR you find one of the 8 pirates (in which case you lose all your cards). If you stop before a pirate you can score sets of three or more.

Special cards keep things interesting. Treasure chests are worth 3 points all by themselves. LOOT cards allow you to steal treasure cards from your opponents. And that’s it. When the 8 pirates are all discovered then all cards not face up in front of a player are shuffled and spread out on the table. Play goes until someone reaches 40 points. Games are quick and get very tense as the number of revealed pirates approaches 8. Players take more risks when there are fewer pirates in the game.

Pirates (like zombies and ninjas) prove once again to be the chocolate of gaming tropes. They usually make most everything a little bit better. In this case, Go Fish becomes MARRRR-velous ARGH!

ARGH! Is for 2 – 6 players, ages 6+

© 2011 by Fat Brain Toy Company

Game design by Nicholas Cravotta and Rebecca Bleau.

Major Fun ribbon for most excellent slapping game.

Rapid Reflex is a card game that encourages the players to slap the table as hard as they can. The game consists of 8 colors of Reflex Cards (4 cards of each color) and 80 action cards. The action cards tell the players what color card to slap and with what hand. BUT, to borrow from Emily Dickinson, they tell the color slant. Instead of saying “Right hand BLUE,” the action card will say “Right hand JEANS.” Instead of saying “Left hand RED,” the card will say “Left hand STRAWBERRY.” Players race to slap the color with the correct hand. Once a player has a color they may not slap that color again. If they do, the player is penalized.

The game is played until one player has all 8 colors. An interesting twist is that slapping a card with the wrong hand does not result in a penalty. If the first player slaps a card with the wrong hand, no one gets the card. In this way you can prevent other players from getting the cards they need, but thinking that fast is quite a challenge.

Major Fun but watch your fingers!!

Rapid Reflex is for 3 – 4 players, ages 6+

Game design by Peggy Brown. © 2011 by Fat Brain Toy Company

As with all games that receive the Keeper award, Rhino Hero has already been singled out as Major Fun. Read the review to find out why. Now to explain why it is a Keeper.

Before you read the rules, look at the picture. Then, get together with the child of your choice and together and use the Rhino Hero cards to build the highest tower you possibly can before everything falls down due to your local cat or stray child or breeze. Now, we don’t have to explain why Rhino Hero is Keeper.

Maybe for a next step, you can draw your collective attention to the two different kinds of cards: there are the folding cards (the wall cards) and the non-folding (the roof cards). If you look at the roof cards, you’ll notice that on one side of each card there are lines, a bit like the lines you’d find in an architect’s drawing. So, just to make the building part a little more challenging, see if you can make the wall cards fit the lines.  Maybe spread all the roof cards on the table, plan-side-up, and take just the card that you think would be easiest, or most interesting. See if you can use all the cards, or estimate how many cards will be left over when the tower falls. You can take turns if you want.

And then, maybe, read the rules. And learn about what those beautifully foil-stamped symbols mean. And what you are supposed to do with the Rhino. And then discover that there are, in deed, strategic implications, adding to the challenge, and the fun. And then play again. And again.

Rhino Hero is as much fun to play with as it is to play. That’s why we call it a Keeper.

FitzIt is something like Scrabble, only instead of letters you’re playing with ideas. On the other hand, it’s nothing like Scrabble at all, because the winner isn’t the one with the biggest vocabulary, but rather with: a) the most imagination, b) the best ability to convince everyone else of the unquestionable logic of oft-absurd assertions, and c) a modicum of sheer luck.

There are cards. Many, many cards. Two hundred sixty-five two-inch, round-cornered, nicely finished, fun-to-hold square cards, each describing an attribute that can be more or less reasonably attributed to something.

I select, at random:

“comes in an odd numbers”

“fits in a car trunk”

“usually holds other things”

The task is to think of something that all of these things would describe. One might say, for example, “a shopping bag.” And reasonable others would have to admit that a shopping bag does in truth come in odd numbers (e.g. one), fit in a car trunk, and usually holds other things. Of course, if you had more cards (and you, in fact, you have the prescribed five), you would be sorely tempted to use as many more of them as you could. “Hmm,” you opine, “could a shopping bag be, as this other card describes, ‘used to build something’?” Probably not. More than likely, should you make such a claim, you would be voted down, and you would lose your turn. Is there anything else, then, that comes in odd numbers, fits in a car trunk, usually holds other things and is used to build something?” How about a bag of nails? Perfect, no? Now, if only a bag of nails were “often considered romantic.”

Of course, unless you play first, you have to add your cards to cards already played, crossword-like. And your goal is to play all your cards. And, though you have five cards in your hand, you actually have a stock of 15 with which to dispense.

And then there are the strategically pleasing exigencies. For example, should you be able to play four of your cards, you may give away your remaining card to any of your opponents. And in the event that you are so lucky, and so linguistically well-endowed that you manage to employ all five cards, you may give two of the cards from your stock to the unlucky, but deserving player of your choice. And, potentially even more profoundly satisfying, if you add a number of your cards to an existing row or column of four or more cards, you get to give away an equal number of cards, much to your advantage, and equally as much to the disadvantage of your preferred victim. Keeping in mind, of course, that the more cards you hope to use, the more arduous the feat of reasoning required to make sense of them all.

And then there’s the aesthetic, but unscored delight that comes from proving yourself so extremely clever that one of the cards in the row you’ve created connects to a column of other cards in crossword-like manner, and you are able to produce an acceptable definition for both.

Cleverness, in sum, is what it’s all about –  cleverness and convincingness –  and luck, and playing with people who see reason in being reasonable, and have a well-established sense of humor.

FitzIt, they claim, is a game for two or more players. The “and more” part, I believe, is probably not more than, what, 28, figuring 7 players per team. All in all, a party game. And even if only two people are playing, a party game of major fun proportions.

FitzIt was designed by Jack Degnan and is published by Gamewright.

From the first time we played Dancing Eggs, we knew there was something truly noteworthy about the game. The design (it comes in an egg carton, for goodness sake!), the durability, the hilarity, the ease of learning, the elegance of the rules – all signs of a game that we’d want to play again and again.

As with most games that eventually receive our Keepers award, the design is so elegant, and the play value so rich, that the game can be easily adapted to the abilities of the players. Adults can play with kids because we can make different rules for the adults (adults don’t run, they shuffle) so that they can play safely and fairly. If someone can’t run at all, then maybe all they have to do is say the alphabet backwards while everyone else is running to get back to their place in the circle. If the penalty for dropping an egg seems too harsh for a five-year-old, maybe all she has to do is stop long enough to get all the eggs back into position, and then the game just goes on, and on.

It’s a funny game. We all get a little, well, ridiculous, silly even, just in playing it. So we don’t really need to take it seriously. And we can play together, with anyone.

The components are exceptionally sturdy (the hard rubber eggs, the one wooden egg, the large wooden dice), and will most definitely outlast the egg carton container. And egg cartons are very easy to replace.

Durability, simplicity, flexibility, easy to learn, fun to play again and again, with different people of different ages and skills. A Keeper, if ever there was one.

“Brevity is the soul of wit.” Shakespeare (through Polonius in Hamlet Act II, Scene 2)

“Eschew surplusage.” Mark Twain (“The Literary Offenses of Fennimore Cooper”)

“Just spit it out!!” Anyone who has ever played Tasty Minstrel’s brain wracking party game Train of Thought.

Like a lot of party games, Train of Thought puts one heroic player on a quest to squeeze the magic word from the lips of the other players. In most such games each player discovers, when it is his or her turn to accomplish this task, that all the other players were gifted with fewer brain cells than the universe bestowed upon zooplankton let alone higher mammals. Can’t they SEE what I’m doing? How hard can it be to guess this word?

Train of Thought gleefully flips the script around so that it is the player who feels as if they are a couple of IQ points short of stupid as they try to give hints that may be only three words long. There are a lot of laughs to be had due to this limitation, but practice and patience rewires the brain and soon enough, everyone starts to feel almost telepathic.

There are three main components to Train of Thought. 200 Station Cards contain the word clues (6 per card). A 6 sided die. A 120 second timer. Each player has a turn as the Conductor in which they try to get the other players to guess specific words in 120 seconds. A correct guess scores a point for the guesser and the Conductor.

The Conductor draws a Station Card and rolls the die to determine which word will be the starting word. All players see the starting word. When the timer starts, the Conductor draws another Station Card and finds the word with the same die number as the starting word. This is the target word. The Conductor provides a THREE WORD clue that contains the starting word. All other players shout out one word—and ONLY one word—as an answer. If no one guesses correctly, the Conductor must make another THREE WORD CLUE that includes one of the words shouted out by the other players. This continues until the correct word is guessed. The Conductor draws another card and now has a new destination word.

Especially in early games, it is easy to get flustered by the three word limitation. How can you possible get someone to guess “chimpanzee” when one of your three words must be “pudding”? This is a source of great frustration and humor. When you say “This eats pudding” the other players will naturally say things like “children” and “grandpa” and “ants” which are all wrong. BUT it lets you now say “Children sized ape” which might get you a bit closer.

In my observation of the game I learned two helpful strategies. One: don’t worry about wrong answers. If anything, think about getting the others to guess words that will help you get closer to your goal. Two: don’t even worry about making sense. It is perfectly legal to say “Pudding Jane Goodall” with the hope that someone will blurt out “chimpanzee” even though there is no connection to “pudding.” You have three words, and if two of them will get your answer out of another player then you get a point and you also get to seem like the Amazing Kreskin.

Tasty Minstrel Games has a great party game here and it looks great. The instructions are clear with plenty of examples. Art is catchy and the game play is lively. They are a relatively new company but have an impressive stable of games that will appeal to a wide variety of gamers. Check ‘em out. In three words: Major Fun likey…

For 3 – 7 players, ages 10+

Train of thought game design by Jay Cormier and Sen-Foong Lim. © 2011 by Tasty Minstrel Games.

There is often a wide chasm that separates the digital world of video games and the analog world of the table-top game. Sometimes this is facilitated by a generational difference, sometimes by the clash of personalities between traditionalists and early-adopters. There are also some very real differences between the gaming experiences—fundamental differences that keep good games from crossing over. Even at their fastest, board games tend to be slower and more deliberative than their electronic counterparts. And when table-top games are built for speed, they generally require the players to physically manipulate objects—a mechanic that is often problematic for video games.

Asmodee’s takes something of a hybrid approach with their grabby, slappy, trippy card game Jungle Speed. It is not a remake of an existing video game, but it successfully captures the frantic action (and bug-eyed rabbit characters) of a series of games for the Xbox Kinect: Ubisoft’s Rabbids.

Jungle Speed Ravin Rabbids is essentially a fast-paced matching game. Cards are evenly dealt to all the players. Extras go into a pile (called “the pot”). Players turn over cards and if a match occurs, the two players with the match try to grab the “totem” (a soft plastic tube that stands on one end in the middle of the table). The loser takes the winner’s face-up discards and puts them at the bottom of his or her pile. In this manner, winners get rid of cards and losers get more cards. The game ends when one player is out of cards.

Special cards complicate things (naturally!!) If the “rabbid hunter” card appears then all players try to grab the totem. If the “BWWWWAAAAH” card appears then all players must put bunny ears behind the player to the left and laugh maniacally. There are others but the effect is the same: players never know if they are going to be in a duel with one of the other players or ALL of the other players.

The cards for matching have some small differences which make mistakes maddeningly common. And mistakes are costly. If you grab the totem at the wrong time you get ALL the face-up cards from ALL the players. The game also comes with t little Rabbid figurine that sits on top of the totem. Whenever someone grabs the totem, the figuring falls off. The first person to grab the figurine can get rid of one card.

Although the Rabbids are not the first to move from the video world to the wider world of popular culture (Pac Man Fever anyone?) they do bring with them a wild, hilarious, and Major Fun game that will have you swatting and cursing at your friends around a cozy table. Much like you would if you were playing in front of a Kinect.

For 2 – 10 players, ages 8+

Jungle Speed created by Thomas Vuarchex and Pierric Yakovenko. Published by Asmodee. © 2011 by Ubisoft Entertainment.

Puzzles that are just a tad toy-like are, understandably, our favorite. They give us something to play with, while they, in turn, play with us – driving us to, for example, distraction.

This toy-like kind of puzzle is the veritable métier of a company called “ThinkFun,” and Turnstile is one of their newest contributions to mental fitness – the theory being that what doesn’t make you crazy, makes you smarter.

The puzzle board contains nine circular depressions which accommodate up to nine different hour-glass-shaped pieces. Four of these pieces are grey. The rest are each a different color. There are four posts separating the holes. There are also nine barriers of 5 different shapes that fit snugly on the posts. Once placed on a post, these barriers can be turned clockwise, or counter-, however the rules specify that they can only be moved when pushed by an adjacent piece – very much as if it were pushing a revolving door, or, more appropriately (and hence the name of the game) a turnstile. And herein lies the toyetic joys of the puzzle. Pushing those turnstiles around, figuring out which can in fact turn and which is locked into position by an adjacent turnstile or piece, is oddly fun, and often deeply satisfying.

A deck of 40 cards provides 40 different puzzles. The object of each is to get each piece of a different color to its appropriate corner (there are four different corners, each with a color that corresponds to one of the pieces). Depending on which turnstiles are used, and their placement, and how many grey pieces are on the board, solving  a puzzle can require increasingly more moves, and become in like manner increasingly more difficult. A solution is on the back of each card, but there is nothing that says you have to follow that solution precisely. There is apparently no penalty for taking more moves than you absolutely have to. And hence there is an implied permission to explore, push things around, see what happens, and, eventually, with enough patience, discover that you have, in fact, solved the thing. All of which makes playing with the puzzle that much more inviting, and fun.

The board, pieces and deck cards can all be stored in a handy cloth bag, upon which is printed an equally handy inventory of all the various of pieces and turnstiles. Designed by Steve Hayton, Turnstiles is another invitation to major fun.

It’s always good news when we find another Keeper. And Bug Out  is very good news, in deed.

This simple matching game turns out to be remarkably flexible – suitable for kids as young as pre-school age, for families and even for a party full of grown-ups.

You get two decks, each with 36 cards. One deck is round. The other square. The round Bug cards are two-sided, each side showing the same bug. The square Leaf cards are also two-sided, but only one side shows the bug. In the beginning of the game, you put all the Bug cards out and distribute all the Leaf cards equally between players. Then everybody races through their Leaf cards, looking for the matching Bug card, slapping it down, and on to the next, and on, racing to be the first player to run out of Leaf cards.

Now here’s the thing. Sure, you can play it on a table. And sure, you can have everyone sitting down. Or you can have everyone standing up. Or you can play it on the floor, with people standing up or sitting down. Since the Bug cards have the same bug on both sides, you can just drop them anywhere and they’ll be right-side-up. And you don’t have to keep all the Bug cards together. There’s a variation called Big Bug Out that tells you to play with the cards spread out on the floor, but you might as well plant them all around the room and down the hall and into the other room so that people wind up running around and amok, generally screaming.

And each way you play, on the table or on the floor or in the whole house or outside or in school is different.

And the game is strong enough and simple enough that you can change the rules, if you want, and play in teams so that people with limited abilities or very different skill sets can help each other win, or all play in one big team and everybody can help everybody beat the record for how long it takes to get all the bugs cozily covered by their matching Leaf cards. Or a relay race maybe? Or if you’re playing with the back-bending-challenged, you could arrange the Leaf cards on the floor and have them drop the Bug Cards onto them (easier, because the Bug Cards are the same on both sides).  Or what about giving some players Leaf cards and others Bug cards and have them try to find each other? Or take one Bug Card or Leaf Card out of play and see if you can figure out which one is missing.

You get the picture? Flexibility. Adaptability. Variability. Fun for everyone, anywhere, again and again.

And it comes in a travel case, too!