Feb

08

Timeline

Filed Under (Party Games) by General Fun on Feb 8, 2012

spacer You can learn how to play Timeline in, what, three minutes?

You’ve got some beautifully illustrated little cards on the table in front of you (109 0f them). Each card shows a different invention, like, you know, a transistor, a toothpaste tube, a laptop. The actual date when each item was invented is written on the other side of each card. Which is why your cards are on the table rather than in your hand – so you can’t see the dates. In the middle of the table is one card, date-side up. You take one of your cards, invention-side up, and slide it next to the date-side up card. If you put it on the left side, you are claiming that that particular invention took place before the date showing on the date card. And if you put it on the right side, after. And that’s just about it, rule-wise.

spacer From then on, players take turns, trying to get rid of their cards by placing them in the correct position (sequence) in the growing time line. As the game progresses, it gets more difficult, because there are more dates, the timeline growing evermore finely graduated. So you really have to know increasingly more precisely when that thing was actually invented. If you are wrong, you put your card back into the box and take a new one from the deck. If you are right, often enough, you get rid of all your cards, and you, ha ha ha, win!

The whole game feels like something special – 109, small, unique, beautifully illustrated cards fitting ever so perfectly into the velvet-like-lined insert into the ever so metal case. So easy to learn and teach. And yet, so very challenging. In a good way.

It’s probably true that the more you play, the better you get. Unless your memory is like mine. If you suffer from near-eidetic memory, you will eventually run out of people who want to play with you. The only version of Timeline currently available is about Inventions. Fortunately, the next set, Discoveries, is scheduled to come out this Fall, so: 1) you won’t have to wait too long, and 2) you’ll be able to put both sets together and have 218 beautiful little cards with which to demonstrate your historic memory.

On the other hand, it only takes maybe 15 minutes to play. It’s not a game you’re going to take, like, seriously. But it’s seriously fun, and, for the rest of us, it’s a great opportunity to learn some things, surprise ourselves and each other with our knowledge and lack thereof, and it will occupy a welcome and happy place in your game collection even when you aren’t the one who gets to play.

Timeline can be played by 2-8 players. Though players can be as young as eight-years-old, it’ll probably be more fun for them if they play with kids of more or less the same age. For players of every age, the fun of Timeline is timeless.

Timeline was designed by Frédéric Henry. The original publishers are Hazgaard Editions. It’s available in the U.S. from Asmodee. (you can find them on Facebook, just in case)

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Feb

07

Quadefy

Filed Under (Family Games, Kids Games, Senior-Worthy, Thinking Games) by Major Fun on Feb 7, 2012

spacer I moved 12 times in my first 6 years of marriage. Many of those were short skips across town as we jumped from one cramped box of graduate student housing to another, but they all involved packing and repacking all our belongings into a truck and then emptying said truck a few miles away. Under those conditions you either gain a knack for the packing process or you learn to save up for a professional.

We could never afford a professional.

Those skills came in quite handy as I went up against General Fun in a friendly game of Quadefy.

Maranda Games has released several handsome abstract strategy games and Quadefy is their entry into the realm of three-dimensional tiling games. 2 players take turns placing their wooden blocks within a 4X4X4 cubic grid. The last player to make a legal move wins. Each player has 8 game pieces that resemble three-dimensional Tetris shapes. An illegal move is any placement of a piece that extends out of the 4X4X4 grid.

spacer The pieces are composed of attractive, solid wooden blocks that are designed for play and display. All 16 pieces fit together to form a perfect cube which means Quadefy serves double duty as a competitive strategy game and an engaging solo puzzle. Like the other games in Maranda’s line-up, Quadefy is visually striking and is meant to be left out for guests to see and touch and covet.

Games are fast, even when some players are *AHEM* deliberative [significant look in the direction of General Fun…], but there are so many ways to start that re-playability is high. Patience and spatial awareness are handy traits, but that goes for most games.

And as fun as the game is already, I heartily recommend an alternative condition suggested by General Fun himself: play with your eyes closed. Try it as a solo puzzle and then in competition. It’s a great twist on an engaging and well designed game.

For 2 players, ages 6+

Quadefy game design by Mark Fuchs. © 2011 by Maranda Games.

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Feb

05

Color Code

Filed Under (Puzzles) by General Fun on Feb 5, 2012

spacer 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.

spacer 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.

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Feb

05

Troy

Filed Under (Puzzles) by General Fun on Feb 5, 2012

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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.)

spacer 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.

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Feb

05

Scrambled States of America – 10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition

Filed Under (Family Games) by General Fun on Feb 5, 2012

spacer The Scrambled States of America – the 10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition is, as you might have guessed, the Deluxe Edition of the similarly, but not quite as deluxe edition of the Scrambled States of America Game, which is like, but clearly not the same as the more youth-oriented edition, The Scrambled States 2. All of which might leave you to conclude that there’s something here of genuine play value.

We are delighted to inform you that your conclusion is uncannily accurate.

Yes, it is a geography game, and equally yes, it is about the States of our united America. So, should you find yourself having become a rationale-needing parent, yes, you can tell yourself that your interest in playing this game with your chilren has nothing at all to do with fun – albeit surprisingly hilarious, sometimes silly, often challenging, ultimately delightful, fun-wise.

There are two decks of cards – blue and red. The blue-backed cards are the State cards. There are 50 of these, like any good set of United State cards, one for each State. On each there is a cartoon illustration of the State (with a face on it), the name of the state, the capital, and the nickname. These all come into play during the game. The red-backed cards make up what is called the “Scramble” deck. As in Scrambled States. The Scramble deck contains the challenges relating to the States. There are two kinds of challenges: Find-It (in which you have to find the State in your hand that has a certain color or touches a certain number of other States or has a certain number of letters or a person’s name in its capital), and Go the Distance. When you draw a Go the Distance card you turn over one extra State card from the blue-backed deck, and then use your map (each of up to 4 players gets their own map) to find which of the States in your hand is the closest.

spacer There’s a lot of luck (you only have five of fifty States at any one time with which to solve a particular challenge) – but enough skill to keep you engaged. And, yes, you are learning, constantly. Picking up facts about the States, their capitals, their locations, their geographic connections. Which is incidental to the game play, but inevitable. All of which makes Scrambled States of America something close to the epitome of educational games. You’re having fun. You’re learning. The fun never stops. And the learning is not really the point. The point is playing together, sharing fun, knowledge, caring about each other, helping each other – all those really important things that come from playing a good game together.

This game has been around a long time, and the rules reflect the wisdom that comes from a game that has been played for more than ten years: easy to read, well organized, and including a version for early readers and several house rules to add longevity to an already deeply play-worthy game.

Scrambled States of America is based on the children’s book (whose title, by less-than-coincidence, is The Scrambled States of America) – a wonderfully playful, popular children’s book, a copy of which is included in the 10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition.

Designed by Mary Doherty Ellroy, published by Gamewright. Major fun.

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Feb

05

Scramblitz

Filed Under (Family Games, Puzzles) by General Fun on Feb 5, 2012

spacer 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.

spacer 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.

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Jan

29

Look Look

Filed Under (Family Games, Kids Games) by General Fun on Jan 29, 2012

spacer Look Look (a.k.a. The Monstrously Speedy Seek and Spot Game) is what you might call a “seek and spot” game, or almost just as rightly, a “shape-matching” game, or even a “perception” game. It can demand, perhaps not monstrous, but often excruciating seeking/spotting speed. It is neither the first nor the only Major Fun award-winning game to require speedy spotting, but it is the first to stretch the mind in so many deliciously different ways.

There are eight frames, each with a different color border. There are also eight different, two-sided cards that fit in the aforementioned differently-color bordered frames. Each of these cards displays twelve different images on each side – nine of which feature silhouette-like depictions of strange, but clearly silly-looking monster-like creatures; the other three displaying a numeral, a symbol, or a muti-colored target.

There’s also a deck of 68 cards. The backs of the cards are marked with a single letter – that letter being either an L, O, or K. The front of the cards offer one of 6 different challenges. There’s your Question Mark card – a question mark surrounded by two frames, each of a different color. The challenge here is typical of most shape-matching games: to find the same shape on cards in two different frames. Then there are the Creature cards which demand that you find the one creature (in any frame) that is the exact match, the Symbol card which asks you to find the match to that abstract shape, and the Target card where you have to find the one bullseye-like target one the one card that shows a bullseye with the identical sequence of colors. Finally, there are Plus and Minus cards. Each is surrounded by frames of two different colors. Here you must find the number on each of the matching cards in the indicated frames, and be the first to announce the answer (the two numbers, either subtracted from or added to each other).

spacer The first player to collect cards whose backs spell LOOK LOOK is the winner. Which means that you might actually win a particular challenge, but not the card that you need. Ah, luck. So comforting for some. So frustrating for others.

The variety of challenges adds a great deal to the fun of the game – not just unpredictability, but also engagement. To play the game well, you have to be more flexible, visually and intellectually. Not too much more flexible, but just enough to make the game a unique contribution to your collection of family games.

The frames are sturdy. The large board tiles are thick enough to withstand long bouts of repeated play, and fit well into their frames. Because the cards are two-sided, and placed into different frames each game, there is a welcome unpredictability. The cards in the playing deck are also large, but thinner, making them easier for the large-of-hand to shuffle.

Designed by Peggy Brown, and produced by MindWare, a company that has produced several many Major Fun award-winning games, and with Look, Look, yet one more.

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Jan

23

Pajaggle redux

Filed Under (Family Games, Keeper, Puzzles) by General Fun on Jan 23, 2012

spacer 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.

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Jan

23

Chromino

Filed Under (Family Games) by General Fun on Jan 23, 2012

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Chromino. Hmm, you might say to yourself. Chromino. Like domino, perhaps? That would explain the “…omino” part. Hmm again. Perhaps the “Chr” refers to, yes, chrome? Of course. Dominoes made out of chrome. That would be lovely, don’t you think? Possessing quantities of shininess and heft. But that would still be dominoes, just by another name and material. No, Chrominoes is more than that. Related, but significantly other. The “Chrom” is as in chromatic, you see. As in having color. Hence, far more visually appealing than dominoes. Yes, there are tiles. But each tile is composed of three, not two sections. And each section is a one of five different colors. And there are 75 of those. And another five, similarly three-sectioned tiles, the center of which is mysteriously yin-yangish – a special tile, known as the “chameleon,” whose center can be considered any color, or, should the circumstance manifest, two different colors, somehow simultaneously. And each Chromino is unique.

So you get all these colorful, three-sectioned tiles in this hefty, all cotton, flat-bottomed, drawstring bag. You fish around in the bag for a chameleon tile. Place that in the center of the table. Each player then draws eight tiles. The game commences. Players take turns trying to find one tile in their collection that can match two colors of tiles already on the table (as illustrated). Intriguingly, and often causing a moment of rapacious delight, it is possible to place a tile so that its end color matches a color on two different tiles, fulfilling the connect-to-two rule, yet with all the same color. Fascinatingly, and occasionally giving rise to a sense of aesthetic comeuppance, sometimes one of your tiles can bridge two different, hitherto completely unconnected tiles. And as the game progresses, more and more of these fascinating, colorful, eye-catching, mind-absorbing possibilities make themselves evident.

spacer Chromino is easy to learn. But, as you play it, it fairly reeks of evermore enticing strategic implications – none of which is particularly threatening, but most often engagingly fascinating. Those chameleon tiles can sure come in handy, which means that you just might want to hold on to yours until that most excruciatingly strategic moment. And the way the tiles get clustered as the game evolves, enticing the eye and often befuddling the brain. And it all seems so innocent, so easy to understand, and yet offers so much to play with.

To win, all you need is to be the first player to run out of tiles. On your turn, if you don’t have a match, you must pick (which, as in dominoes, is antithetical to the “getting rid” part. If you can use your new tile, you can play. In one variation, you have to keep on picking until you have a match (o, the ever-increasing anguish). In another (one we made up), you can keep on playing until you run out of matches. There are more variations. O, yes, there are more. There’s one called “Bambino” (of special interest to the younger set) in which you only have to match one color. Then there’s the Expert version in which each Chromino has a value (depending on how many different colors it has), and you score each play by adding the value of the Chromino and the other Chromino(s) it touches. Then there’s the solitaire-like Conondrums variation, more of a puzzle, really, where you attempt to determine all the possible ways a particular Chromino can be correctly placed in the growing array. This, of course, gets more and more challenging as more tiles are added.

The variations, the ease of making up your own rules increase the replay value as well as the likelihood of finding a way to play that each player will find inviting, and suitably challenging.You can play it by yourself, you can play it with as many as eight people, you can play it with peers, with kids as young as six. You can play it with anyone who has a steady enough hand to place a tile without disrupting all the others (it’s better to play on a tablecloth than on a slippery surface).

There’s just enough luck so that you don’t really need to take the game seriously, and just enough strategic potential to make you believe you can win by virtue of sheer mental superiority. Designed by Louis Abraham, published by Asmodee, Chromino is fun for the whole family. Major Fun.

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Jan

22

Rory’s Story Cubes®: Actions

Filed Under (Family Games, Word Games) by General Fun on Jan 22, 2012

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We have already greeted Rory’s Story Cubes with appreciation and enthusiasm. This elegantly designed Major Fun award-winning set of nine story-building dice has found happy welcome in classrooms and restaurants, libraries and living rooms. The evocative images on the faces of each die, the simple rules, the sturdy little box with the magnetic closure – all work so beautifully together to invite creativity and humor and the endless invention of new invitations to the imagination and new ways to play with it.

So it is with great interest and anticipation that we greeted the arrival of the Actions set of Rory’s amazing cubes. Same packaging. Same number of dice, but, instead of nouns, the illustrations suggest verbs. And, even if this is the only version of the Story Cubes you have, you’ll find the Actions set as stimulating and and inspiring as the original set. And, should you have both sets, you’ll soon discover that you can happily combine dice.

According to Rory:

One tip is to mix 3 Rory’s Story Cubes®: Actions with 6 Rory’s Story Cubes®. We find this to be a good combination for storytelling.

We find that some prefer the Actions for storytelling. Especially people exhibiting Autism. They can relate to the character it seems. Others don’t like the use of characters so much, as they find it hard to use images in other ways (unlike the more metaphoric icons on the original set). The Actions have been used on their own, and all 18 together, especially with larger groups (like in the classroom).

Quite a few teachers teaching ages 4-6 like to use just 3 dice of either set, to form simple sentences and stories.

What a fascinating invitation to explore not just story telling, but also story tellers. So much to play with. Such fun, as a way to spark your own imagination, as an exercise, a game, for children, families, creative thinkers of all ages and purposes. Thank you Rory. Thank you Gamewright.

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