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 out stuff that is fun and unique, one of the games I suggested was Chicken Cha Cha Cha – another game in the “Chicken Family of Zoch” which includes the previously reviewed Pickomino (see here).

Now, Chicken Cha Cha Cha isn’t the easiest game to find (it’s being re-released in October), and with a $30+ price tag it makes it even harder to cough up the money to buy it before trying it but I really thought it was a great purchase.  The game’s been around since 1998 and it was invented by Klaus Zoch (hence the “Chicken Family of Zoch”).  Unlike Pickomino, Chicken Cha Cha Cha is aimed at a younger crowd – 4 and up.  The game is simple, each player gets a beautiful wooden chicken with one tail feather that is placed on an egg shaped tile that is one of 24 laid out in a circle.  (Eggs, laid…get it?)  Inside the circle there are 12 octagonal tiles scattered about face down.  On your turn, you look at the egg space in front of you and try to flip over the tile in the middle that has the matching image.  Obviously in the beginning it’s all guessing, but as you get going it’s a great memory game!  If you flip a matching tile, you “cha cha” your chicken one space forward and your turn continues until you don’t flip over a matching tile.

The point of the game is to collect all of your opponents tail feathers.  To do that, you must catch up to, and then jump over another player.  After which you collect ALL of their tail feathers.  If the game has just started, they may only have their own feather but as things get going they could have collected a tail feather or two already.

Chicken Cha Cha Cha is definitely a fun twist on classic memory with exciting head-to-head play.  And while the $30 or more price tag is really steep for a kid’s game, it’s one that adults can definitely enjoy – even without the kids!  I also have to say that this game is amazingly well made.  The tiles are really thick and durable and the wooden chickens are something you won’t find in games at Target or Wal-Mart for sure

Chicken Cha Cha Cha Stats:

$30-$45 at Amazon, Barnes & Noble.com,  FunAgainGames.com
2-4 players
15-20 minutes
Ages 4 and up

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 with a question where all of the answers will be numbers.  Each player writes down their best guess and then all of the answers cards are organized in a row from lowest to highest.  Simple enough.  Then players each take their two “Meeples” (people shaped movers, see above) and they place the large one and their small one on the answers they think are correct.  Just as in original Wits & Wagers, you can vote for your own but sometimes it’s best to look to someone who has more knowledge regarding the question and vote for their answer.  Once all of the votes are cast, the answer is read and the winning answer is the one that is closest without going over.  Players with a large Meeple on the correct answer get two points, whereas the small Meeple is worth one.  An additional point is awarded to the player who wrote down the correct answer as well.  Points are tallied on the wipe off scoreboard.

Overall, I thought their use of “Meeples” was a really clever way of omitting the not-so-kid-friendly betting tokens.  It’s also great for people who aren’t real gamers or are intimidated by the betting and odds aspect of Wits & Wagers.  My only concern with the game is that some of the questions were a little too easy.  (We all knew there were 8 crayons in the first box of Crayolas.)  I know I said something similar about Take 5, so it might be that my brain is filled with too much useless knowledge because of excessive game playing and trivia writing, which is distinctly possible.  But there is an easy solution if you agree with me, grab the box of cards from Wits & Wagers and just omit any inappropriate ones.  Otherwise, just skip the easy ones in the Family version; there are plenty of fun and interesting random tidbits within the cards.

Wits & Wagers Family Stats:

$15 to $20 at Amazon, Toys R Us, Barnes & Noble,  AreYouGame.com
3 -10 players
15-20 minutes
Ages 8 and up

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 game that my friends and I would play while waiting for the bars to “get going” back in my young, single Jersey Shore days.  We would have a few Budweisers over rounds of “Name 5 movies with Kurt Russell”; “Name 5 songs by KISS”; “Name 5 actors from the TV show TAXI”… and so on.  The game was always there long after those summers were traded off in favor of fatherhood and “responsibility.”  Mike Gasser (Endless Games “el Presidente”), Kevin McNulty (VP of Sales), and I would challenge one another with Name 5 categories all the time until one day Mike finally chimed in with, ‘Guys, we play this game all the time. Why don’t we box it and sell it. We are a GAME COMPANY after all!’ So that’s what we did!”

Overall Name 5 is a fun listing game, but the testers felt that some of the topics were just too darn easy even with a 30 second time limit!  During the first test, each team only lost one Name 5 challenge each: “Bon Jovi Songs” and “NFL Hall of Famers.”  This made the game feel like winning was going to be determined by rolling high, winning “Flip Flops” (where two teams go back and forth – sometimes for quite a while) and it ended up being a battle to complete all five of the categories on a single card in 90 seconds at the end.  It wasn’t bad – sometimes it was just too easy, but the second go around we changed the rules slightly and allowed the card-reading player (or team) to PICK which topic they wanted to give their opponent (on wilds it was a choice between two topics).  With the change I felt like my brain got more of a workout and it added a nice element of “stump your neighbor” that everyone really liked.

I urge you to try Name 5 out.  It’s a fun party game that everyone can be good at —and if they’re too good, do what The Game Aisle testers did and stick ‘em with the hardest topic on the card!

Name 5 Stats:

~$25 at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, AreYouGame.com right now and Toys ‘R Us in the fall
2 or more players
~30 minutes as long as someone can do that last card!
Ages 12 and up

November is a couple months away, but it’s the right time to start planning your trip to TAGIE and ChiTAG! And guess what?  I’ve worked out a discount for all readers of The Game Aisle! Write “The Game Aisle” on your registration form (or download the one below) and get $75 off the full registration cost!*

What are TAGIE and ChiTAG?

TAGIE is the Toy and Game Inventor’s Expo and it is the best place for new and experienced toy and game inventors to meet industry experts and expand their knowledge of the business.  It’s a two day conference that covers a variety of topics including:

• How to get your concept licensed
• Self-manufacturing
• Protecting your ideas
• Using sales reps and distributors
• Using an agent
• Prototypes and play testing
• Toy safety legislation
• and much, much more!

Without repeating everything you can find on the TAGIE website (see here) I’ll just give you some of the highlights.  Besides getting all of your questions answered during the discussion panels, conference attendees mingle with the speakers (including me) during “inventor table walkabouts.”  During these “walkabouts” you may show experts your toy and game concepts and gather candid feedback.  Past attendees have shown everything from scrap-paper prototypes, to drawings, all the way to fully manufactured products!  If you want more time with an expert, you can choose to sign up for the one-on-one consultations which give you private meeting times with some of the experts.  This is a great way to talk one-on-one with buyers, reps, manufacturers, etc. that you may not have access to at any other time!

Personally, I recommend this event because it’s a really open and transparent experience.  Experts mingle and chat with attendees at all of the meals.  On Thursday night there is an “Evening with the Experts” dinner that is a great way for the attendees and experts to network over drinks and food.  And then on Friday night, it’s the Toy and Game Inventor Awards and a ticket is included in the registration!  It’s an AMAZING evening with the top industry inventors, designers and manufacturers and last year the inventor of the Game of Life, Reuben Klamer, was honored.  The TAGIE conference is, in my opinion, the top networking event of the year.

And then to boot, it is right before ChiTAG (Chicago Toy and Game Fair)! ChiTAG is the largest, family-friendly game expo that is open to the public! So whether you get a booth to sell or demo your products or if you just want walk the show with your family, it’s not something you want to miss.  And how smart is this?   It’s right at the start of the holiday season so you can push your products and help them make it onto Christmas Wish lists — or better yet, into the shopping bags of show attendees.

When & Where do TAGIE and ChiTAG take place?

TAGIE is Thurs. November 18 & Fri. November 19, 2010 (*One-On-Ones take place on Sat.)

ChiTAG is Sat. November 20 & Sun. November 21, 2010

Both take place at Chicago’s Scenic Navy Pier

How do I sign up?

So glad that you asked!  You can download the registration PDF by clicking here: 2010_TAGIE_Registration.  Or if you want more information please go to the TAGIE site: www.TAGIE.net Just remember to write “The Game Aisle” on your registration form and subtract $75 from the “Full Registration” cost only*.  If you click on the PDF above, I’ve done it for you.  And for you out-of-towners, the hotel info is here.

Hope to see you there!

*$75 off is for the “Full Registration” only and cannot be combined with any other offers and void where prohibited.

**FYI, I do not receive commission, kickbacks or money of any kind for promoting this event.  I just think it’s the best conference for game inventors of all experience levels.

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 mentioned that he worked with Eddy early in his career.  I wondered what that would be like, so I asked Randy for an interview and this is what I found out…

Q.   When did you work with Eddy?

“Early in my career.  I started at Marvin Glass and worked there for about two and a half years before I moved to California to work with Eddy from 1984-1989.  After six years with Eddy I moved back to Chicago to help start up the then newly formed Meyer/Glass Design.”

Q. What was it like working with Eddy?

“Eddy is an amazing guy.  Some succeed in the invention biz just by being savvy businessmen, but Eddy is a great inventor AND a great businessman.  He also loved every aspect of the [inventing] industry.  He loved the process, the problem solving, the model making, the presentation…all of it.  Some people only like one aspect, but not Eddy, he was part of it all.”

Q. What did you learn from working with Eddy?

“The invention side of the business can be so disappointing; Eddy always immediately bounced back from disappointment.  He really was a model for not letting it get you down.”

Q. What did you work on while you were there?

“One of my favorites was a game called Quicksand in which the movers get smaller as you play, but it wasn’t a big hit.  I also worked on Shark Attack, and I was responsible for the original Lego Creator game.   But Eddy’s earlier items are really the classics.  My favorites are the Vac·U·Form –I really wanted one of those as a kid — and Battling Tops.  Kerplunk is a amazing too, but as a child I liked Battling Tops better.  Eddy really was a true innovator.  Between the Marvin Glass designers and Eddy, together they invented most of the most classic games of the 1960s..”

Q. Any great stories about working with Eddy?

“Eddy and I had a great working relationship, and in my years there I think I only made him mad once.  I was working in the shop over a weekend on a side project and Eddy came in.  He wanted to know what I was working on and I apologized and admitted that it was a side job.  If I had just asked him first he would have said it was okay, but I was young and I hadn’t and it upset him.  I told him that I didn’t know how else I was going to get it done and that I really wanted to do it and he started to get interested in what it was.  I showed him what it was going to be — that it was a motorized bubble machine, part of a set of stage props for Steve Martin, and after that he was okay with it.  Later he saw the piece in which it was used and he got really excited about it.  It was his ‘Great Flydini’ act…you should look it up, it’s really funny.”

And I did…enjoy this (the bubbles are the encore):

Q. Any last words you liked to share about Eddy?

“We live in a world where the word ‘genius’ is thrown around a lot, but Eddy really is a genius, without question.”

I guess we can all see why Eddy is getting the Lifetime Achievement award!

Thanks to Randy Klimpert for cutting a little bit of time out of his busy schedule to talk to me.  He’s a great inventor and I learned a lot from him early in my career and it sounds like he learned some of it from the best in the biz!

• More info on the awards: http://www.tagieawards.com
• Article on Eddy by inventor Tim Walsh: http://www.globaltoynews.com/2010/05/ingenious-eddy.html

Photo of Eddy on main page taken from Golf Connoisseur Magazine, 2005.

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 Fair in February and have been dying to have a copy ever since.  The metal packaging is adorable but it’s the super cute Dweebies illustrations that I enjoy.  There are doctor Dweebies, yoga Dweebies, super Dweebies, foam-finger Dweebies and so on, and each one of them has been carefully illustrated for maximum cuteness!  (And yes, we name them as we play them!)

There are 54 Dweebies cards in the deck (27 different illustrations) and the goal is to collect as many of them as you can.  (And why wouldn’t you want to – they’re so CUTE!)  Players each starts with 5 cards in their hand and  replenishes as they play.  One by one players place Dweebies in a grid pattern in the center of the table by adding a Dweebie above, below or next to any other Dweebie.  To capture Dweebies you must create “bookends” of two of the same Dweebies and you collect all of the Dweebies in the middle.  Look at the the grainy illustration below  to get a better idea of what I mean by “bookends.”  Essentially, the two matching Dweebies must be on the ends.  Once you do this, you collect the two bookend Dweebies and any Dweebies in between them.

The other rule of the game is that apparently Dweebies don’t like to be lonely so if someone picks up a line of Dweebies and it creates some loner Dweebies or a couple of unconnected packs of Dweebies players must play cards to connect the Dweebies before adding cards elsewhere on the mass.  (Just FYI, the grainy image shows 2 game scenarios…I know that because someone couldn’t place a second bookend Dweebie until the two groups had been connected.)

It’s an easy overall concept for younger players to grasp, but there is another layer to this card game that makes it appealing to us older players as well.  Each Dweebie has a dot in the corner of the card.  This tells you how many of this particular Dweebie are in the deck.  The dots range from 1 to 4 and you’ll find that there is a strategy to playing the 1-dot “blocking” Dweebies and 4-dot Dweebies.   Obviously it’s very advantageous to count the cards, and it’s a great way to teach the younger crowd why card counting can be important in games.  Yep, that last sentence really solidifies it…. I’m a game geek.  But is that really wrong?

Dweebies Stats:
~$10 at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, internet retailers and mom & pop game shops
2 to 6 (Never tested it with 5 or 6…sorry)
10 Minutes or less
Ages 8 and up

Balderdash is based on a parlor game called “The Dictionary Game” or “Fictionary” which was around long before big bangs, even bell-bottoms.  The premise is simple, choose a word from the dictionary that isn’t in anyone’s vocabulary and ask everyone to make up a definition.  Then one person reads all of the made up definitions as well as the real one.  Players then guess which one they think is the real definition.  In Balderdash, if someone votes for your made-up answer, you get a point.  If you guess the correct definition you get two points.  Three points are awarded to the reader if no one guesses the real answer OR to a player if their made up definition is really close to the real definition, but with words like “sniggle” (to catch eels by throwing bait into their hiding places) and “fackeltanz” (a torchlight parade), that never really happens.

In the past couple decades, Balderdash has been with multiple companies including Parker Brothers and Mattel, who currently has the license.  Over that time Balderdash went from being just words, to having an expansion called “Beyond Bladerdash” that included people’s names, movie titles, funny laws and initials/acronyms in addition to the weird words.  This apparently was a success, because the current game of Balderdash includes all the fun bits from “Beyond Bladerdash.” Personally, I’m glad because the initials/acronyms are my favorites.  And just FYI, N.P.P.A. does not stand for “Nudist Petunia Planters Alliance” it actually is the “National Pickle Packers Association” but both of them make me laugh!

Anyway, if you haven’t played Balderdash find someone who has it and force them to host a game night.  It’s best to play with 4 or more people and it does make you think – I’d almost say “be creative” — but don’t let this scare you, some of the stupidest answers are the funniest.  There was one about a tabby cat alliance that caused tears there was so much laughing last time I played.

Balderdash Stats:
~$25 at Amazon, Target, Toys”R”Us, and many more
4 to 6 (it says 2 or more, but it’s not great unless you have 4 and you can add more movers to play with 8.)
30-45 Minutes or more (but you can easily shorten the game – pick a new “finish” on the board)
Ages 12 and up

So then are these changes/modifications wrong?  Of course not, once you purchase a game it’s yours to play how you like.  Just have fun!  And if you come up with a great rule or way to play – share it!  Nate Scheidler who is the Organizer for both the Chicago Board Games Meetup and Chicago Boardgame Designers Meetup thinks:

“’House Rules’ [are] where many designers get their start. They don’t always fit, but trying to improve a game experience (or increase its challenges) is a good thing.”

So whether yours makes the game harder, easier, faster or more fun, my question is:

What are YOUR house rules?

To start us off, I’ve compiled a list and I hope you add to it by leaving a comment below.

• In UNO we play multiple hands until someone reaches 250 points, and if you get EXACTLY 250 points (accumulative) you go back to zero.  (The Vandenbroucke family)
• While playing Apples to Apples, if someone plays the “Helen Keller” card they automatically win the round.  * FYI -I hear this is in homage to a previous game. (The Grzybek family)
• When playing Monopoly add an extra die to move around the board faster and pass GO more often. (The Brown family)
• In Pay Day instead of the money from paying bills going to the bank, the first one to reach “Pay Day” each month got that pile of cash. (The Brown family)
• In the Out of the Box 10 Day series, allow players to trade positions of 2 cards in their rack on their turn instead of drawing and discarding a card. (The Couzin family)
• Play Scrabble with separated vowels and consonants. On each draw, players can choose how many to take from each pile. Bingos (7-letter words) are easier to get, so only count them for 30 points, instead of 50.“ (The Goroff family via Think Fun’s Facebook Page – Thanks Charlotte for posting!)

Obviously, Order’s Up is a diner themed game and to kick off play, everyone selects two guest checks, which each have 6 food and/or beverage items on them.  To win you need to collect all of the items on two checks.   The game starts with 4 meal/beverage tiles in the center of table surrounding the bell.  On each turn, a player rolls the die and it either has a picture of a bell, a broken bell (which puts you “on break” until your next turn – ouch!), a Free Meal, an Order Mixup or an image that indicates you need to add two tiles to the play area.  If you roll a bell, the first player to ring the bell gets to select a meal or beverage from the play area that matches an image on one of their guest checks.  If there isn’t one that matches, they draw from the stack and take it if it matches or add it to the center if it doesn’t.  So this is really a speed game, which makes you think that anyone who doesn’t have the reflexes of a cat probably isn’t going to win.  WRONG!  The inventor of this game, Myles Christensen, added in some nice catch up factors for the quickness-challenged folks out there.  For example, if you roll a Free Meal, then you could be a super-slow three-toed sloth and still get to start filling your guest check by grabbing a tile from the center.  If you roll an Order Mixup, then you get to swap either one of your guest checks with anyone else’s (tiles included) – my suggestion, steal from the player with the roadrunner like speed.  They’ll catch up again, right?  (You just can’t swap for a completed card; those stay with the player that finished them.)

Order’s Up did a really great job of putting a couple of catch up factors into a cute themed speed game.  And it’s these details that make the game memorable because at times it’s feels more like you’re getting bamboozled than your slow-as-molasses opponent is getting a chance to catch up.  Then again, it could be the lightning fast person who is getting all of the Free Meals, but it only takes one Order Mixup to change all that.

Overall, all of the parts of Order’s Up work together nicely, kind of like how a milkshake, burger and fries make a great diner meal.  And besides, the game’s got a bell and who doesn’t like a game with a bell?

Order’s Up Stats:
~$15 at Amazon, FunAgainGames.com (**Comes out June 1st but you can pre-order it now!)
2-6 players
15 Minutes or less (depends on number of players)
Ages 6 and up

This article was written for ThinkFun’s Smart Play Blog!  Find it and their other great articles: here

Recently I was on the ThinkFun website and saw the big ad for the iPad and iPhone Rush Hour apps saying “Now even more ways to play in traffic!”  This made me chuckle.  Why? Because I live in Chicago, where despite a state-wide ban, 80% of drivers are txting, emailing or talking on their cell phones while driving so really we don’t need more ways to “play in traffic.”  But you know who could use an app like that….our car mates.  Yes, the husbands, co-workers and friends who play backseat driver and insist they know a “better way” out of the gridlock by taking some crazy side street that has potholes large enough to swallow small children and Smart cars.

And youngsters aren’t much better.  Teens complain, kids get antsy; the longer the car ride is, the less pleasant it gets.  But I have a solution.  Fork over your iPhones.  Yes, that’s right, hand them over (since you shouldn’t be using them anyway).  This could be a win-win for all drivers and passengers.  Drivers get to listen to the music, talk radio or audio book they want without hearing how long the ride is or how the lane next to them is moving faster.  And while the drivers are focusing on the road, the passengers get to work their own magic and move the little red car from the impossible cluster of cars in the Rush Hour app.  And who knows, maybe the gridlock everyone is experiencing could bring us closer together.

To find out more about the new RushHour iPhone AND iPad apps, click here.