Earlier this summer Brian Turtle of Endless Games emailed me after I posted my backgammon review (see here) and wanted to know if I had ever played their kid’s game Quackgammon.  I’ll admit, I’d walked passed it at Toy Fair but I didn’t stop to play.  Maybe it was because their booth was so busy or because my pal Mary Couzin’s booth was right down the way and I heard a rumor that she was bringing wine or maybe it was because I love backgammon and I wasn’t really sure …

If I bought every game I thought looked cool, I’d be broke.  No really, my “to buy” list is very, very long.  Lucky me I got a freebie version of the game Q-bitz and I LOVE IT!  Why I waited when I knew it was a Peggy Brown game is somewhat perplexing me right now, but hindsight is 20/20 right?
Peggy is an inventor chum of mine and so I asked her to tell me a little about how she came up with the game.  She was also nice enough to …

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 …

This is going to be a review for Gamewright’s new game Order’s Up which came in a box of goodies from them last week, but before I get into the review I’m going to hop up on my soapbox for a second and talk about game play essentials.  I believe that there are a couple game elements that are crucial for a game to be good and one of them is having a “catch up factor.”  Granted there are games out there where you don’t need – and can’t really …

Not far from my house there is a dive bar, with scary red lighting that hosts bingo on Monday nights.  It’s really not all that exciting; you win a brown paper lunch bag filled with random odd items.  I was lucky enough to win the first round Monday night and my winnings included some Cheez-It snacks, baby food, a bunny sucker and Chicklets.  By the end of the night our table had a skull candle, a bible card game and three colors of “fun dough.”  But before the bingo festivities …