The neighborhood I live in here in Chicago, well let’s just say it’s “up and coming” and it’s been “up and coming” for pretty much the entire 7 years that I’ve lived here. During those years, it’s definitely been getting better and this year huge strides have been made with great new bars, restaurants and shops going in nearby including an upscale toy store! The owner of the new toy store *Play, asked for my help picking out games for their target age group (8 and under). Trying to pick …
Read the full story »
When it comes to “Junior” or “Family” versions of games I usually feel that a game loses a little of the magic or gets watered down to make it age appropriate for the younger set, but I really enjoyed the family version of Wits & Wagers! I thought the changes the folks at North Star Games made to the original game were well thought out and the game doesn’t lose any of it’s magic.
Just as in Wits & Wagers (read that review here), Wits & Wagers Family starts each round …
Endless Games did a nice job of summing up the game play of their new board game, “Name 5,” in the title so this review was pretty short, but the game’s inventor, Brian Turtle, was nice enough to share how he came up with the game. Here’s what he said:
“Yes, I thought I was a one-trick-pony after having initial success as an inventor with The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon and never writing a “sequel”. But lo and behold, much like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, Name 5 is a parlor …
A month or so ago it was announced that Eddy Goldfarb (left) will be receiving the Lifetime Achievement award at the Toy and Game Inventor Awards in Chicago next November. Most of you know that I’m from Chicago and I got my start at the now defunct invention firm Meyer/Glass Design. While I was there I worked alongside Randy Klimpert who is now at Hasbro doing product design for Cranium and Trivial Pursuit. Through blur of good and bad idea meetings, Simpson jokes and office pranks, I recalled Randy once …
Sometimes I think people are willing to cut games a little slack when they look really great but don’t play as well as they should. Whereas I’m more likely to enjoy a game that is unattractive but that plays really well. (What does that say about me?) So when there is a good looking game that’s really fun to play I get downright excited! (See my article on Pentago…I was drooling while playing that game!) Anyway, Dweebies is just that kind of game. I saw it at Gamewright’s booth at Toy …
I somewhat feel that it’s a copout to review a game that’s been on store shelves (mostly mass market shelves too) since 1984 BUT recently, I’ve realized that just because it’s been out that long doesn’t mean that people have actually played it. Like, I found out that three of my favorite game test monkeys have never played Balderdash. Jeez! They’re all shy of 30 (which means that the game has been out since BEFORE they started reading!) and they like and play games regularly, so how did they miss …
