Even though there have been holiday decorations up in stores across the country for more than a month, I personally can’t believe it’s already November and the holidays are right around the corner!  Now, for many of you in the game world you know that before we can dig in to our Thanksgiving turkey, we have to meet in Chicago for ChiTag!  And the game I’m going to review this week, Befuzzled, will be the star of the Fun Q Games booth.

I’ve had Befuzzled on my desk for a little while but waited to write my review for a couple reasons.  First, I think this is a great family party game for the holidays – especially for a crowd of slightly over-served adults, teens and kids.  Second, if you are stopping by ChiTag I wanted to remind you to stop by the Fun Q Games booth #219 – not only are they nice people, but they have 2 games worth checking out (Befuzzled and Triplica) and you’ll be able to buy it there!

So what is this game I speak so highly of?  Befuzzled is a speed/action game with quick rounds; which is a nice combination for a family-friendly party game.  There are 3 types of cards in the box: Action cards, Flip cards and Shape cards.   Action cards list actions (duh!) like “Bark like a Dog” and “Snap Your Fingers.”  You lay 8 of these cards face-up on the table in 2 rows of 4.  Then you take the Shape card deck and lay one card on top of each Action card so you can still see the title of the action.  Next you pick a player to start the round and give them the deck of Flip cards. This person is the “judge” and they turn over the top Flip card so everyone can see what symbol it is.  Whoever does the action under the matching shape first, wins the round and gets to keep the Flip card.  The Flip deck gets passed to the next player and they’re the judge for the next round.  Play continues until there are no cards left in the Flip deck and then you can choose to count up cards and keep score, or just claim a winner for the game.

The instructions are pretty specific as to how many cards should be in the draw deck (5 x the number of players) but us beer-drinking adults skipped over that rule.  We did find that this game played really well with a larger group and while the instructions say 3-8 players, I’m not sure the game would be quite as much fun with only 3 players.  What I do like about this game is that it comes in a nice small box so it’s easy to pop in a bag and bring it to a friend’s or relative’s holiday party – or heck, you could even give it as a hostess gift!  (Man, am I filled with great ideas today!)

Befuzzled Stats:
~$14 ChiTag, Specialty Retailers and Amazon.com
3-8 players (although I recommend at least 4)
~10-30 minutes (you decide how many rounds you want to play!)
Ages 7 and Up

**For $2 admission to ChiTag, visit HERE

A while ago I asked on Twitter what everyone’s favorite speed games were and I got a variety of answers but one stuck out to me, “Jungle Speed.”  I was curious about this game as it was suggested by a couple tweeps who share my taste in games. Shortly after I got an email from the manufacturers of Jungle Speed and I figured the cosmos was trying to tell me that I’d enjoy this game.  And I do.  And apparently I’m not the only one since more than 2 million copies of the game have been sold worldwide.  That’s a lot of games!

In a way Jungle Speed is similar to Halli Galli as all players are flipping cards and looking at the cards to see if they find the right combination.  (see review of Halli Galli HERE) If they do, in Halli Galli they ring the bell but in Jungle Speed you grab the “totem” in the middle of the table.  In Halli Galli you’re trying to collect all of the cards, whereas in Jungle Speed you’re trying to get rid of your cards and they go to whoever wasn’t quick enough to grab the totem.  There are some small differences between the games but the big point of difference is that Jungle Speed includes cards that change up the play.  For example, you go from looking for the same symbol to the same color or it’s whoever is the quickest to grab the totem.  It keeps things fresh and players on their toes.  You can watch how to play here:

There’s one other thing I feel I must mention in this review.  In the past you’ve all heard me rant about boxes and how flimsy boxes don’t play nice on my game shelf.  Well, Jungle Speed has a flimsy box BUT they also include a nice fabric bag to contain the totem, cards and instructions, which is awesome, especially for travel.  So ditch the box and store everything in the nice bag!

Jungle Speed Stats: 

~$20 at Amazon, Target, ToysRUs, Barnes & Noble, mom & pop retailers
2 to 10 players
~10-15 minutes
Ages 8 and up

As my regular readers know, here at The Game Aisle I tend to review mass-market, mass-appeal games and steer clear of games that appeal to more serious gamers.  Mostly because I, like a lot of casual gamers out there, don’t like reading long instruction books and I don’t like to spend more than 30 minutes on one game.  So when Gryphon Games asked if I’d like to try their game Incan Gold I was pretty sure it was going to be outside the scope of games I review – but oh my gosh it’s not!

Incan Gold looks a little like a German-style board game and for those in the know, it says on the box that it was invented by Alan Moon and Bruno Faidutti.  Over his career Alan Moon has worked for Avalon Hill (maker of war & strategy board games) and invents for Ravensburger and Days of Wonder (publisher which specializes in German-style board games maybe most famous for Ticket to Ride invented by Alan Moon).  To me, this was not a great sign – but I agreed to try it out.

As it turns out, Incan Gold is a great press-your-luck game.  The story goes that everyone is an adventurer and you’re looking for jewels in an ancient Incan temple and on each turn you must decide if you want to keep hunting for treasure or return to camp with your haul.  That’s it…that’s the WHOLE game.

The game is played in 5 rounds so you have 5 opportunities to score.  On a turn a card is flipped and if it’s a Treasure card, the number of jewels it shows are split amongst the players who are still in the temple (which is everyone at the start of the game).  The jewels are actually little plastic jewels with the turquoise jewels being worth 1 point, the black or “obsidian” ones worth 5 and the gold are worth 20.  Like I said, the jewels are split equally amongst the players and then each player has to decide if they’re going to stay or go.  Players use one of two cards to blindly vote on whether they’re going to stay and keep “looking” for treasure or go.  When everyone reveals what they’ve decided, those who have decided to leave get to put the jewels they’ve collected under this cute paper tent and they’re yours to keep for the rest of the game, but you’re out for the rest of the round.  The players that stay in flip the next card and continue to split any treasure that comes their way.  There are also artifact cards that give out extra points but those can only be collected if you are the ONLY person to leave the temple on a turn (which takes a keen guess) but artifacts can get you a bunch of extra points.

There are also hazard cards in the deck like Giant Spiders, but they don’t matter until a hazard that matches one that’s already been played is pulled.  So when the first Giant Spider card is flipped over, it doesn’t matter.  It’s when the SECOND Giant Spider card is pulled that the round is over.  Anyone who is still in the temple loses all of the jewels they’ve collected and the round is over.  The round also ends when there are no adventurers still in the temple – but that’s pretty obvious.  Once a round is over the deck is shuffled and the round restarts with everyone back in the temple.  At the end of the 5^th round, players lift their paper tents and total up their jewels to see who can claim victory!

The game is easy to grasp once you’ve played it.  I’ve done a pretty good job of explaining the basics here, but the directions are a little long so I’d advise you check out an online explanation of the instruction, like The Dice Tower’s:

I also would agree with Tom from The Dice Tower that Incan Gold plays better with more players.  The box says 3-8 (and the directions say 3-5) but I’d say at least 4-5 players to make it interesting.  So good luck and happy treasure hunting!

Incan Gold Stats:

• ~$15-20 Amazon.com, FunAgainGames.com, some mom & pop retailers
• 3-8 players — but I’d say 4/5-8
• ~15-20 minutes maybe a bit longer if people are very lucky!
• Ages 8 and up

If you live here in the US, Memorial Day is this weekend; which means the kids will all have a truckload of extra energy – you know, the kind that comes from knowing that they don’t have school on Monday.  I don’t know why this occurs, but whether they’re your own children, your relatives, neighborhood kids or ones of questionable ownership that show up just in time to snag a hot dog fresh-off the grill, you’re going to need to find something to keep their salty potato-chip fingers off your garden gnomes, your vintage board games and the game of bags you and some of the other adults want to play during the requisite Memorial Day barbeque.  May I suggest grabbing a copy of Out of the Box’s new game Shake ‘N Take – it will keep them occupied and out of trouble, at least for a little while.

Shake ‘N Take is a fast-paced, frenzied game for up to 10 players, although you only need 2 to play.  Everyone gets a sheet of funny-shaped aliens and then one kid is selected to start with the dry-erase marker and shape die and the player to their right gets the egg with the alien die in it.  When the game starts, the kid with the marker rolls the die and starts circling aliens that match the shape on the die.  The kid next to them is shaking the egg hoping to get the alien face-up on the die inside.  Once the kid with the egg is successful, they grab the pen from the other kid and roll the die and start circling aliens on their own card.  Obviously the kid on their right is going to grab the egg and start shaking it feverishly so they can get a chance with the pen since the object of the game is to be the first player to circle everything on your sheet.  With 2-5 players you play with one pen and one egg but with 6-10 players you play with 2 pens and 2 eggs to make things a bit more exciting.  It’s a simple, fun and fast-paced game invented by Keith Meyers and since I know Keith, I thought I’d ask him how he came up with the idea.  Here’s what Keith said:

“I’ve always felt that to be a good inventor you need to be a good observer.  I think my development of the game Shake N Take is a good example of that.

Shake N Take was born from a game played at camp and in classrooms.  The original premise had the sheets filled with letters or numbers and you would be progressing down or up through the alphabet or counting down or up a string of numbers.

In watching the game play it was obvious the fun factor was there: lots of screaming and laughing amongst the kids and a certain palpable tension that made the game very exciting.  But in watching several groups play over time, I noticed a couple of core repeating issues that I thought detracted from the heart of the game.

First, the older kids, or at least the ones with better critical thinking skills, would spend time plotting out where their next batch of letter or numbers would be when they weren’t marking their sheets, while the younger kids were caught up watching the insanity revolving around the table.  Invariably, these methodical kids came out ahead, but also seemed to miss out on the fun and laughter surrounding them.  Changing the numbers and letters to symbols and adding a die that allowed you to mark them off, solved this issue nicely.  There was only so much planning you could do when it came down to dice rolling.

And the second issue was the tug-of-war that often ensued when one person was ‘stealing’ the pen from another person.  Someone would have a death grip on the pen, the other desperately trying to wrest it from the other.  While initially funny to watch, it did not help the play of the game, and it put younger players, again, at serious disadvantage. Some tinkering with pencil toppers and other concepts, yielded the workable, but ugly, design you see pictured (wooden spool with packaging tape).

These observations lead to my design of “On A Roll” which took another step forward in the capable hands of Out of the Box, who upped the quality of the components – like the awesome alien-egg shaker, and added spiffy alien-themed graphics to make this design out-of-this-world!”

Thanks to Keith for sharing the story behind Shake ‘N Take!  I should also mention that the sheets have 2 sides, one with aliens and the other with basic shapes so kids of all ages can play and the game is pretty even, so whether you are having just a couple kids or a small army at your house this weekend, I highly recommend you have a copy of Shake ‘N Take to keep them entertained.  And let’s face it, if kids are playing games, they probably aren’t causing any trouble – at least not any major trouble.

Shake ‘N Take Stats

• ~$29 Amazon.com, FatBrainToys.com, FunAgainGames.com and some mom & pop retailers
• 2-10 player
• Time completely depends on the number of players
• Ages 8 and up is what the box says…I say 6 and up

To write about or not to write about – sometimes that’s the question.  Games come across my desk all the time and we play them and typically it’s love at first play or not so much (yet I still give them a second chance).  But once in a while there’s a game that didn’t go well in the first play but I have a feeling it was just with the wrong group of people.  You’ve Been Sentenced completely fits into that category.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with this game, it’s all about creating a sentence out of the ten 5-sided cards in your hand.  Each side of the card has either a different word or phrase – they can be the same type of word (like a bunch of names or colors), a different form of a word (like: dream, dreamer, dreaming, dreams, dreamt), or a series of little words (like: and, of, the, to, a).  Each side of the card also has a point value ranging from 0 (wilds) to 20 points.  On each turn you get as much time as you want to concoct the highest scoring sentence possible (you don’t have to use all your cards).  Once someone thinks they’ve got a great sentence, they flip the timer and the countdown begins.  When time is up everyone reads their sentence – and some can be very absurd. For example:

Weird-O • George Washington • Secretly • Shaped • The Study • Of • Squeezing • Springy  • Squash.

If the group okays your creation, you total up your points adding a bonus of 10 points if you were the player to flip the timer and/or if you used all 10 cards in your hand.   The first player to 200 wins.

So what went wrong with the first play test?  I played with competitive people.  The sentences were a tad past absurd and there were far too many arguments on what should be allowed, which inhibited the game from being fun.  The second group was more laid back – maybe it was the wine – but the timer stopped but people still got a couple extra seconds to perfect their sentences because they were going to come up with the “best one yet” and no one really cared.  Players were striving to craft a sentence that was going to make the group laugh versus trying to win by putting together point-heavy arguably nonsensical string of words.  The other thing that I believe made a difference…having a tabletop.  The first group of players were strewn about out over a couch and chairs which makes it almost impossible to spread out your cards to see what you had.

Overall, You’ve Been Sentenced can be a great game if you’re playing with the RIGHT group of people – and potentially disastrous if you’re not.  So find some nice, friendly, non-competitive winos and gather around the table.  The game also has add-on decks so you can play with words that are more topic-specific such as: Pop Culture, Sports Highlights, Sci-Fi and Fantasy, the Reader’s Digest National Word Power Challenge (vocab) and out any day now NASA Space Terminology.  I personally enjoyed the Gourmet Cuisine deck because sauce, sauced, sausage, Big Boy and Colonel Sanders make for funny sentences.

You’ve Been Sentenced Stats:

• ~$25 for the main game, $8 for add on decks (you MUST have the main game to play!) at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, AreYouGame.com, and many others
• 3-10 players
• 30-45 min. (depends on how long it takes your players to perfect their sentences)
• Ages 8 and up

If you follow The Game Aisle on Facebook then you already know that I won the Wonder Woman in Toys award for Social Media given by Women in Toys during Toy Fair last month— and you’re probably sick of hearing about it!  But give me 2 more seconds on the topic.

Obviously I never set out hoping to win an award – I spend time on facebook and twitter simply because I like sharing stories about the industry and meeting new people.  I work at home, with a dog that snores and have found that facebook and twitter provide a “water cooler” to chat with other industry folks around.  It also helps me keep up on what’s new and fun so I can pass it along to you, my wonderful readers!  I bring this up because the game I’m reviewing in this article came to me via Twitter.  I tweeted using #ChiTag back during the show and the @Mental_Floss people asked if I was still at the show and wanted to give me a copy of their new game, Split Decision.   And now because of that one tweet – I’m going to tell you about a very fun adult social game…

Split Decision is dubbed “The Hilarious Game of Improbable Pairings” which is pretty much on the mark.  Players get to mark off one letter in the phrase “I MADE THE ULTIMATE SPLIT DECISION” for each correct answer and players take turns reading the A or B trivia to the rest of the players each round.  The catch is the trivia is totally absurd.  At random, I’ve chosen a couple cards from the deck.  The first one is “Who said it Valdimir Lenin (A) or John Lennon (B)?” the other is “New Jersey Town (A) or Moon of Jupiter (B)?” There are three questions on each card with answers that will be either A or B and as you read them everyone has an A card and a B card which they place face-down in front of them to answer.

Want to try one?  The question is “Broadway Musical (A) or Aftershave Scent (B)?”

1. Wild Country

2. Beyond Paradise

3. Ambassador

The answers are at the bottom of this already-too-long article.

The game is really funny – and ALL PLAY so you don’t have to sit through turns and turns of people mulling over their answers.  There are also challenge cards that don’t have an A or B choice, but you have to omit them when there are only 2 players.  Most of the cards have fun tidbits explaining some of the trivia answers.  Like did you know that Wild Country is by Avon and “the company claims the bergamot and coriander scent should help ‘Unleash his wild side.’” Wow.

The only negative for this game is that you blow through the trivia at mach 10 speeds, but then again since you’re answering so many bizarre questions, how many are you really going to remember?

Answers: 1. B, 2. B, 3. A

Split Decision Stats:

• $25 at MentalFloss.com, Borders, Books-A-Million, Marbles (The Brain Store) and mom & pop shops
• 2-8 players (must omit challenge cards with 2 players so 3-8 is better)
• ~15-20 min.
• Ages 12 and up

I know that there are plenty of toy and game inventors that read this site so and I’m sure they’ve had similar experiences – but there’s no feeling in the world quite like seeing your game on the shelf!  It makes all of the hard work and late nights worth it, and dulls the pain of all of the rejection letters that go with being in the business.  My big game this year is Scattergories Categories manufactured by Winning Moves.  Now, I don’t entirely think it’s fair that I review my own game, but then again this is my site…and I like this game – A LOT.  So I’ve decided to compromise a bit and I’ll explain a little of the history of the game, then I’ll have some outside folks toss their two cents in.

I’d like to say I knew Scattergories Categories was exactly what it was when I came up with the idea, but I didn’t.  I didn’t think the idea of having a vertical category word with players trying to come up with words horizontally that start with the letters in the vertical category word was enough to stand on it’s own, so it ended up being a mini-game in another game.  Luckily, Mike Gray remarked that the little mini-game was an interesting idea and that feedback got the Scatttergories Categories ball rolling.  After making it a game on it’s own it was obvious that it was a great line extension for the Scattergories brand (sketch at right).  Unique answers get you points just like in the classic version, but  it solved the one thing I disliked about Scattergories, which is you play the same 12 cards over and over.  This new method solves the “repeat” problem so easily because you get a new category every round thus you never feel like you’re playing the same questions over and over with different letters.   Thankfully, Winning Moves agreed, licensed it and asked me to write the content!  (Yipee – I LOVE writing content!)

I will admit that coming up with enough category phrases/words was a little more difficult than I had expected.  Scattergories Categories not like other category games where you come up with a category and boom – it’s done!  In Scattergories Categories the vertical word or phrase needed to have a minimal number of vowels, virtually no Is, Us, Xs,Ys, Zs or any other weird consonants.  For example: if I wanted the topic to be “Bubble Gum Brands and Flavors” BUBBLE GUM seems like the obvious choice especially since there are a ton of answers for B like: Big League Chew, banana, Berry Blast, Big Red, Bazooka, etc. but what flavor starts with U?!  Ugli fruit?  I’d veto that.  So the vertical word became BEST CHEW because it still includes the B and limits the vowels to only two Es which have a bunch of answers: Eclipse, Extra, Excel Extreme, euclyptus (although not common flavor it’s one of my favorites) just to name a few.  So coming up with words turned out to be more of a science than I expected!  But after two weeks and almost 1.5 inches of paper I was done and was more certain than ever that the game rocked – mostly because after essentially playing for 2 weeks straight, I wished I had to do more!

Like I said earlier, reviewing my own game may not be the most believable thing I could do (although I must ask, have I steared you wrong in the past?), so here are some other people who gave me their reviews:

Lauren Rizzo, Teen Programming Librarian at Indian Trails Public Library · Addison, IL

(Lauren got introduced to the game when I brought an advance copy to her library “Meet the Inventor, Play the Game” program back in June.)

“If you want great fun, Scattergories Categories definitely the way to go.  This game is a fun twist on the original game (Scattergories), and, I think, gives the game an additional level of strategy.  Players are given a word that describes a category – it is then up to the players to come up with words that start with each of the letters in the original describing word – a deeper level of play.  The fun begins when the timer starts, and you’ve got 2 minutes to think of something that will (1) fit into the category, (2) start with the correct letter, (3) be unique (in that no one else will write it as their own).  Example—Carnival: C = cotton candy, A = acrobats, R = rats, etc.   This can get very creative and you’ll get answers you would’ve never expected.  Especially if you’re playing with my mom who tends to “cheat” – somehow if there’s a letter D in the original word, the answer will always be “dirt.”  The rules do allow for people to challenge another player’s answers, which adds another hysterical dynamic to the fun-for-all-ages game.  My mom’s defense to any challenges?  Dirt is everywhere.  And it’s hard to say no to that!”

Suzette Soukup-Oko, Private Investigator · Westmont, IL

“It’s now my favorite game to play.  I like it because I am a light-weight (drinker) and you can play it when you are drinking and it seems like the answers we come up with get funnier and funnier!  It’s easy, relaxing and fun to play with a lot of people or just 3 people. Even though there is thinking involved, the unique questions that are asked of us on the cards really seem to stimulate thoughts and are answer-able when intoxicated!  It’s easy to set-up, easy to explain to a new-comer, and the time really flies when playing it.  Nobody ever seems like they are ready to stop playing the game.  It’s great because both young people and old people can play it.  It brings out a lot of laughter from the group!”

Josh Gorman, Program Assistant at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History · Washington DC

“I found [the game] before thanksgiving and pulled it out a couple times with my family and [my wife’s]. It was great – a huge improvement over the original.  More letters makes it only slightly easier and tons more inventive (and thus more fun in my book).”

Chung Liang, Design Manager at Learning Curve Brands · Chicago, IL

“The categories are funny and people’s answers are likely to spark lively debate.  Also, the odds of having similar answers are more likely so there’s some strategy in how you fill in the answers for words with 2 of the same letters.”

Nicole Flores, Northside Prep High School Math Teacher · Chicago, IL

“I love Scattergories Categories!  Having a love of Scattergories and board games in general, I was naturally drawn to this new hit game.  What I enjoyed the most is having the category provided and then different letters as opposed to rolling a die and using one letter the whole time.  I think this offers more diversity in answers and more playing fun!  I have played Scattergories Categories with family, friends and even students.  This is definitely a game I will continue to play.”

Nina Kult, Public Relations Executive · St. Louis, MO

“I love the challenge of Scattergories Categories, taking the original Scattergories concept one step further. It forces you to think fast and be creative in attempt to outsmart your fellow players.”

Tracy Lopata, Manager at Lopata & Company · Naperville, IL

“I loved Scattergories Categories.  It was better than the original.  A wonderful game to play with a group of friends.  We had silly, warmhearted fun and laughter playing this game.”

Scott Slimmer, Post-Doctoral Student University of Illinois · Champaign, IL

“I’ve always enjoyed the original Scattergories, but I love the way that Scattergories Categories breathes new life into a familiar game with one simple yet elegant twist.  The combination of intriguing categories with playfully worded clue phrases also serves to infuse the game with the kind of unpredictable fun that brings to mind one of my all-time favorite game shows, Pyramid.  Scattergories Categories is definitely going into heavy rotation in my family’s game repertoire.”

Bonnie Olszewski, Public Relations Specialist · Joilet, IL

“I enjoyed it because of the wide variety of categories. It was harder than I thought to come up with answers for some of the letters, and tons of fun to hear what everyone came up with and for them to defend their words that were kind of a stretch.”

Lindsey Smith, Museum Curator, Archivist and Exhibit Developer · Des Moines, IO

“Scattergories Categories is the perfect game for anyone who wants to be a little creative and have a lot of fun!”

Jack Degnan, Board Game Inventor, San Diego, CA

“Very fun, easy, contagious!”

Laurie Wojtko, Scientist · Palatine, IL

“It’s a fantastic challenge and provided for lively conversation and competition.”

Emily Vandenbroucke, Pharmacology Doctoral Candidate · Chicago, IL

(yea, so we’re related…we grew up playing games together so if she likes it, it’s probably good.)

“Really creative take on the original Scattergories- still a ton of fun to play in groups or with just 2, but now with a new twist that makes you think just a little differently than before.”

Scattergories Categories Stats:

~$20 at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and lots of mom & pop stores
2 or more players (it says 4 but we’ve played with 10+)
~4 minutes per round, ~20-30 minutes for a game to 25
Ages 12 and Up

What did YOU think of Scattergories Categories?

We all know that learning a game from someone else is so much easier than mucking through the directions (even if the writers did follow the tips I laid out in a previous article, Poorly Written Rules = Everybody Loses).  It’s why they have people demoing the games to buyers at Toy Fair – otherwise they’d just hand out printed directions.  (Just imagine how painful that would be.)  But when someone shows you how to play, you can often learn and play at the same time!

Unfortunately, there aren’t too many opportunities for the general public to try out games before they buy them.  This past weekend you could have gone to your local library for National Gaming Day, a local game store for Neighborhood Toy Store Day, or insisted a friend with a huge game collection host a game night, but if you missed those opportunities, THIS weekend you could head to the midwest for the Chicago Toy and Game Fair (ChiTag).   It’s one of the largest, open to the public, game fairs in the United States and what makes ChiTag different from some of the others, like Origins or Gen Con, is that it has mass games, specialty games and what I call specialty mass-appeal games.  These are games that could easily fit in the game aisle at your local Target or Toys ‘R Us if there was more aisle real estate because they’re casual-gamer friendly (not the ones you have to read a bible-sized direction book and set aside 40% of your weekend to play).   And while game fairs aren’t ingrained into our culture like they are in some other countries (Germany for example), they’re definitely growing.  This is ChiTag’s eighth year and it has over a hundred exhibitors all teaching consumers how to play their hot new games just like they teach buyers at Toy Fair!  (click image at right for full sized $2 off admission coupon!)

So here’s a little preview to entice you to head to Navy Pier on Nov. 20th  & 21st:

The NOT-EASILY-FOUND Games from Small Companies

Square Shooters, Heartland Games

This is a fun dice game that is actually multiple games in one all using a set of nine “square shooters” dice that were developed by Carmelyn Calvert.  She figured out that on nine dice you can have an entire deck of 52 cards plus 2 jokers AND make every 4 of a kind and straight flush, therefore lending square shooters to multiple poker and rummy themed games.  The main game called Square Shooters is about trying to match the hand (or roll) found on a deck of cards.  You have to match the card in three rolls or less and you collect the full number of points if you match it exactly, but you only collect half the points match the KIND of hand.  So lets say the card shows a four of a kind with kings.  If you get all four kings, you get 4 chips but if you don’t think you can roll four kings but you can roll four jacks, you can do that and collect 2 chips.  There are some other cards like “Showdowns” and “DoubleDowns” that brings player interaction to the game.  It’s a lot of fun (although the directions are a bit wordy).

Square Shooters Stats:
~$10 for the regular set, ~$18 for the deluxe set at ChiTag, Specialty Retailers and Amazon.com
1 or more players
~20-30 minutes
Ages 8 and Up

Triplica, Fun Q Games

If you don’t lives near Smithfield, Rhode Island than you probably didn’t spend your day at Sparks Toy & Hobby Shop for Neighborhood Toy Store day and you didn’t get to see the demos of Triplica by the Fun Q Game folks.  Well, lucky us they’ll be at ChiTag too! Triplica which is a fun, easy, family card game in which you are attempting reach your secret goal of getting three of one of the symbols (x, square, circle, etc.) in a row.  There are typically 5 cards (depending on number of players) with three symbols on each in the center of the table.  On their turn, players place another card with three symbols on it from their hand on top of one of the cards already in play.  If you get three in a row, you call it out, earn one point and select another secret goal.  First player to 5 points wins.  There are also two other games that can be played with the Triplica cards one of which is a solitaire version.

Triplica Stats:
$15 at ChiTag, Specialty Retailers and Amazon.com
1- 6 Players
~10-15 minutes
Ages 7 and Up

KingsCourt Game, Winsor Entertainment

KingsCourt is by FAR a more expensive game than I would ever review on this site, BUT I feel that I have to mention it for two big reasons.  First, it was invented by Reyn Guyer — the inventor of Twister!  Second, it’s been shown at ChiTag before and every year the booth is PACKED with people playing it!  (And third, because it’s FUN!)

The game is a fun mix of chess and croquet; each team has a mallet and the goal is to knock over their opponent’s “KingPin.” The game consists of 3 balls, 2 “Soldier Pins” and a KingPin for each team. Using the mallets, teams hit their own ball and try to knock down their opponent’s Soldier Pin or hit their opponent’s balls.  If they are successful with either one, the object (ball or Soldier Pin) is removed from the game.  Knocking over your own guard, also eliminates it from the game so you have to use a little skill.  To win you want to knock over the other team’s Soldier Pins and then their KingPin, OR you could eliminate all of their balls.

While the game is pricy, you can get years of outdoor fun with it so it might be worth the investment — besides, everyone seems to have a bags game right now, so why not be different?

KingsCourt Stats:
$200 at ChiTag, KingsCourtGame.com
2 Players (or Two Teams)
Time varies based on skill
Ages 6 and Up

Newer Games from Medium Sized Companies

Telestrations, USAopoly

From USAopoly, Telestrations drawing meets telephone.  The first player gets a word, they draw that word, the next player guesses the word, the next player draws that guessed word and the method continues.  And because you don’t want to end up with the same word you started with (or the game would be dull), not being able to draw like a master artist is a HUGE plus.  Great game for a group laugh this holiday season.

Telestrations Stats:
$25 at ChiTag, Barnes & Noble, Specialty Retailers, Amazon.com
4-8 Players
~45 minutes
Ages 13 and Up

5 Second Rule, Patch Products

5 Second Rule is very similar to “Name 5″ from Endless games, (see HERE) because the goal of both games is to give a certain number of answers before the timer runs out.  In Name 5 it’s 5 answers in 30 seconds and in 5 Second Rule it’s 3 answers in 5 seconds.  While Name 5 was sometimes too easy, 5 Second Rule is sometimes very hard, but in 5 Second Rule after the first player fails, the other players have a chance to steal but they can’t use words that have already been mentioned.  It’s beyond easy to learn and the timer is SUPER COOL, and since Endless isn’t going to be at ChiTag I have to recommend this one out of the two.  (Otherwise it might be a close call – I think it would depend on who you’re playing with and what kind of games YOU like.)

5 Second Rule Stats:
~$20 at ChiTag, Specialty Retailers, Amazon.com
3 or More Players
5+ minutes – you set the number of rounds!
Ages 10 and Up

Classic Games You’ve Never Tried

Sequence, Jax

You’ve seen it in stores, but you’ve never bought it.  I know, I was there once.  But it’s really an easy-to-learn five-in-a-row game that’s been around since 1982.  Each team or player is dealt five cards and on your turn you discard one of your cards and put a chip on one of the two spaces on the board that matches that card.  The goal is to get five-in-a-row first and your opponent can play cards to block or use a jack to either remove a chip of yours or play a chip of theirs anywhere.  It’s simple, easy, fun.

Sequence Stats:
$15 at ChiTag, Toys R Us, Target, Amazon.com and many more
2-12 Players (personally I think it maxes out at 6 players)
~10 minutes
Ages 7 and Up

And some other games that will be there that I’ve already reviewed:

• Wits & Wagers, Wits & Wagers Family by North Star Games
• Last Word, Truth Be Told by Buffalo Games
• Stix & Stones, Blurt by Educational Insights/Learning Resources
• Word on the Street, Backseat Drawing, 10 Days in the Americas by Out of the Box Games
• Triviathon by Jeezle Pete
• The Game of Chips by Jax
• Ratuki by USAopoly

And lots of others I’m sure I forgot.  Bonus too, lots of companies have “show specials” which means games at LOWER PRICES!  Perfect for either adding to your collection or buying holiday gifts.

Hope to see you all there!!

Yamodo! I have no idea how to pronounce it or what it even means, but I think that might be the point.  Originally, I ran across Yamodo! in the basement of Javits at Toy Fair and the people working their booth were very perky and forced me to stop and take a look.  At the time they were selling this sheets of paper with a crazy nonsense word at the top of each page, a haphazard line or two in the middle of the page, and “Is…” and a couple lines at the bottom of the page and they told me it was a game.  I was like “huh?!” Didn’t get that.

Yamodo! IS a fun brain exercise that you can do by yourself or a group.  Using the nonsense word at the top of the page, you create a drawing around or incorporating the random little lines on the page and then define it on the lines at the bottom.  I’ve found that it’s most enjoyable to start the drawing and definition, pass it to another person and go back and forth until it’s done.  It’s especially humorous when one person thinks that “doofax” is a fax that has arms so it can do extra work for you and the other person thinks that it scans poop and sends it as a prank.  Yuck.   There are now lots of different SKUs of little spiral Good To Go Yamodo! books including Magic & Mayhem…and after watching those hilarious insurance commercials with the character named “mayhem” I’m having a BLAST playing with that book!  But do the names of the books really matter?  No, it’s all what your brain can come up with and my brain is pretty funny if I do say so myself.  ha!

After enjoying some of the Yamodo! spirals, I still don’t get how they’re a game (I like having winners and losers).  But now they’ve come up with a REAL game called Yamodo! Party Time where the second line in the instructions says, “players compete to WIN…” YAY!

Now, if you are a regular Game Aisle reader, you know that I don’t really care for drawing games because I don’t like showing off my less-than-stellar sketching skills in public.  But I have to appreciate the creativity that this game promotes.  It’s got a bit of an Apples to Apples feel in that there is one person who judges each round and everyone else offers up a drawing that they can lobby the judge to select as the best.  The drawings are done on Yamodo! pages and everyone fills in the space for the  nonsense word at the top with the same word (from a deck) and then they get a tag line like “2 for 1” special from another deck to get their brains chugging.  Sheets get passed around and at the end of the round the judge selects a winner and whoever doodled on that sheet last wins the round.

A couple thoughts – sometimes the passing thing stinks because you added the funniest part of the drawing and you didn’t win because someone gave your hilarious monkey shaved like a French poodle a rhinestone banana necklace at the last minute.  So feel free to skip that part.  The other thing is that having the poor artists EXPLAIN what their drawings were supposed to be was HILARIOUS.  That thing that looked like an amoeba with feet…no, no that was actually a mailman in a wetsuit.

Regardless of skill, if you can dream up something fantastic you can still win Yamodo! Party Time.

Side note here – Yamodo! also has a 2-second (if that) spot in Toyland, the movie!  How cool is that?!

Yamodo! Stats:
$15 for the Original Yamodo! at bookstores, Amazon and ToysRUs.com
$10 for the Yamodo! Good To Go spiral skus including: Gizmos & Gadgets, Magic & Mayhem, and Monsters & Aliens at bookstores, Amazon and ToysRUs.com

Yamodo! Party Time Stats:
~$25 at Amazon, Toys R Us and Barnes & Noble
4 to 12 Players
~20-45 minutes
Ages 12 and Up

Dave Herbert sent a message to me after finding The Game Aisle via my Global Toy News interview (see HERE) and asked if I’d like to try a copy of his “fast paced trivia game for smart AND stupid people!” Well I thought, I don’t think I have many games on the site for stupid people – so I had to try this one out.

While I couldn’t find any stupid people to test it for me, I did use some relatively smart ones (truthfully, they’d kill me if I said otherwise…so yes, they’re smart, very smart) and everybody really enjoyed it.  But before I get to the game review, I asked Dave to tell me a little more about his and his brother Joe’s experience inventing Triviathon.  He wrote me a novel.  So I’ve pared it down quite a bit but think I still captured the essence of their story.  Enjoy!

“Joe is a HUGE board game fan and owns multiple hundreds of games… he has an entire wall full of games in his TV room.  He’s invented a few smaller games just for fun but just over 10 years ago he came to me and said he wanted to invent a “real” board game and actually attempt to bring it to market.  So, we started thinking about what kind of game we should invent.

We were very familiar with Trivial Pursuit and LOVE the game… but also know that it has a lot of weaknesses that make certain people not like it.  So we started making a list of what was great about Trivial Pursuit and what were it’s weaknesses. [click list at right to enlarge] Basically what we thought was great about Trivial Pursuit is that it has very interesting and diverse trivia questions that are well written.  At the same time we came up with a LONG list of “weaknesses” such as you HAVE to be smart to do well in the game (giving smarter folks an advantage).

Neither of us have ever invented anything before, we’ve never brought anything to market before, nor have we been involved with any product based business.  But we’re good at research and dove into the project head first gathering as much info as we could about other games that were invented, etc.  We came across Mary Couzin’s group Discover Games and became members.  She had TONS of great information on her website and through it found a game consultant, Richard Gottlieb, who was a tremendous help to us.

By pure coincidence we entered and won the 2009 Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest [their commercial entry is below] which concluded 2 weeks before Toy Fair giving us a lot of media attention and momentum heading into the launch of Triviathon.  You can’t buy that kind of timing!“

Triviathon really is a different kind of trivia game – it doesn’t have the traditional question/answer format.  Instead each card has four answers and you select whichever one you think will allow you to advance your mover the furthest forward.  I’ve made up an example for you: The top of the card would say, “How many spaces do you want to move?” You must select from the following:

A. The number of games the Herbert brothers marketed before Triviathon.
B. The number New York Toy Fairs Triviathon has been at.
C. The ranking number of the Herbert brother’s Super Bowl Doritos Ad.
D. The number of pages in Dave’s email “novel” was when I printed it out.

You guess A, B, C, or D based on which statement you think has the highest corresponding numerical value because that’s how many spaces you will advance your mover.  So for my terribly written question, the answers are:  A. 0   B. 2   C. 1   D. 3  Obviously some answers you knew – others you might guess.  But that’s the fun of the game.  Mentally you can cross off the ones you think are low – or you can take a slow and steady approach and go with which one you KNOW is a 2 because you have no idea what answer is going to be a 3.  There are a lot of ways for both smart players to be strategic and stupid people to…well, let’s just say even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes.

Triviathon also includes questions where the answer is a color and based on your answer selection, your mover will advance to a particular colored space on the board.  So if the red space is three away from you and the yellow is right in front of you, you’re looking for the statement about something red.

This is definitely a different sort of trivia game and I really enjoyed it.  There’s a whole character segment of the game that can be added it to make it play more like an adult social game, but I’m not going to go into that since I’ve already blown my word limit.  But it gives you more of a reason to buy a copy of the game and try it out with a bunch of your smart – and stupid – friends.  Just don’t specify which category they fall into.

Triviathon Stats:
$15-25 at Amazon, Fat Brain Toys, Funagain Games and many others
**Note that Triviathon just got licensed by United States Playing Card Company and will be apart of the Bicycle brand soon
2 to 12 players
~20-45 minutes (depending on group size)
Ages 8 and up