A couple months ago my inventor pal Gina Manola asked if I would take a look at her new game when it came out.  While I don’t really fit into the target age demographic (kids 3-6), I am a sucker for cute and funny.  Her new game is called Feed the Woozle manufactured by Peaceable Kingdom Press and yep, you guessed it — it’s about feeding a Woozle!  The game is pretty simple and it all revolves around using a spoon to feed the charming monster a series of disgusting yet funny foods, like worm pie and moldy macaroni.  It’s a cooperative game and there are three different levels of play so a variety of ages can enjoy this game.  The key thing to remember is that the Woozle doesn’t abide by the “5 second rule” and won’t eat any foods that drop off the spoon, so dexterity is key to the players being successful.  In more advanced levels you have to do funny actions are even blindfolded and you still have to feed the Woozle — with a little help from the other players.  It’s hilarious for humans of all ages!

And now, a couple questions for the inventor!  (Thanks Gina!)

1. How did you get started inventing board games?

In my business, CALICO, I design games and packaging for toy companies and I have a background in product development. It was a natural transition for me to get into inventing. 

2. Can you tell me how you came up with the idea behind Feed the Woozle?

The name for the game came first. Then I built a narrative around the character from which the components and game play evolved. I wanted to create a game where the character made silly demands while wanting to be entertained by the players. This is where the twist comes in—we think of games as entertainment for us, which they are, but in Feed the Woozle, the imaginary character driving the game also wants to be entertained by YOU. 

3. Did you know right away that it was a cooperative game, or did you change it to make it a cooperative game?

From the beginning it was meant to be a cooperative game. Typically, when I invent games, the theme, content or targeted age range of the game will dictate whether it is competitive or cooperative. If appropriate, I will write rules that offer both ways to play. 

4. Did you come up with all of the funny foods in Feed the Woozle? 

Yes. The silly snacks are a key ingredient of the game play!

5. Can you share your inventing and prototyping process?

It depends on the game. Some games are built from the title and a narrative as described above. Other games grow out of an objective or challenge that I, or a client may set. Some games are developed around a philosophy of play that I think is important. In all cases, I do a lot of sketches—first on paper. Scribbly and fast to get my thinking down as quickly as possible. The game really begins to take shape for me when I can see it. Then I build a prototype, play with it and push myself to remain open to the game going in a direction that I hadn’t planned for. Play-testing and refining of game play comes next. From the beginning, I look at the game from a marketing perspective and ask myself what the distinguishable features are. I try to see it the way a customer might see it on the store shelf. Ultimately I try to create an experience that’s fun and meaningful. (actual prototype pic at right — thanks Gina!)

6. You do a lot of work with the Young Inventor Challenge, which is judged at ChiTAG.  What kind of advice do you give the young inventors you work with? 

I encourage them to keep their antennas up because ideas can come from anywhere. I also encourage them to cast a wide net and never discount any idea when they begin the brainstorming process. Eventually, their ideas will coalesce into a few strong concepts to take to the next stage. Once they have a strong concept, I’ll ask them to pitch their idea to me. This helps them focus their thinking and really define the essence of their idea. Based on that, they can make sure that the best or most unique aspects of their toy or game come through.  

Website for Young Inventor Challenge: www.chitag.com/yic

More about Gina: 

Gina Manola is an inventor and the  owner of CALICO, www.calico-kids.com, an award-winning, design studio offering product development, design, branding,  and marketing to companies in the toy, game, gift and educational markets. Gina has developed successful toy, game and gift products for the specialty and mass markets and her work has been honored by “100 Best Children’s Products” and “10 Best Socially Responsible Products.”

Feed the Woozle stats:
$20 Amazon soon but now some mom & pop stores
2-5 players
~10-15 minutes
Ages 3-6

We’ve already established that Piece ‘O Cake is about cake slices and the whole game is about the golden rule of cake cutting – whoever slices chooses last.  The game is played in 5 rounds with 5 cakes comprised of 11 wedges that are a variety of flavors.  Each flavor has a different value if eaten which is shown by the number of whipped cream dollops. The number on each cake wedge is how many wedges of that kind there are in the game.  But I’m going to get to scoring in a minute…

Whoever’s turn it is to cut the cake divides it into however many slices they’d like up to the number of players.  (So if there are 4 players you can “cut” it into 2-4 slices).  If you slice it into 3 portions, since you’re choosing last you won’t get one – which is something to think about.  The fun comes in when you realize that the slices don’t have to be equal AT ALL.  Not only can they can have a different number of cake wedges – but they will have different values to different players.  One way to score in Piece O Cake is to collect the MOST of any one flavor.  At the end of the game you will receive the number of points listed on that type of cake wedge.  So if you have the most kiwi cake wedges, you’ll score 8 points at the end of the game.  The other way to score is to EAT the cake.  On your turn when you collect your slice, you can choose to eat any number of wedges of cake instead of saving them.  You will score 1 point for each whipped cream dollop (1-3) for those slices BUT they will not count towards your total for that particular kind of cake.   Now, if you don’t eat your cake right away but you decide you want to later, you can forfeit taking a slice of cake and instead you can eat every wedge of a particular kind and this will guarantee you points.

Overall, the game can be quick and fun.  It takes a bit of thought and foresight to cut the cake as you can’t rearrange the wedges to better suit your cutting desires.  Just don’t play this game with people who over think – or use a timer to keep the cutting thinking to a minute.  It definitely was a deeper game than I anticipated and I enjoy playing it even though I have yet to win.  Seriously – what’s a girl got to do to win Piece ‘O Cake?!

 Piece ‘O Cake stats:
~$23 Amazon, FunAgain Games, some mom & pop stores
2-5 players
~20 minutes
Ages 8 and up

If you follow me on twitter you may have seen the tweets from certain twitter folks who might be a bit disgruntled that Santa left a very hard to find copy of King of Tokyo under the tree for me.  As I pointed out to them – and now to you too – if you look to eBay it’s not super hard to find.

The theme of King of Tokyo is really compelling; each player is an enormous monster causing destruction and mayhem while vying to control Tokyo.  Who won’t like a crazy campy monster brawl board game?!  Overall it’s a press-your-luck game where you battle other giant monsters to get into Tokyo and stay there.   Tokyo is on the game board as is Tokyo Bay (but that’s only used for games with 5-6 players).  Each player selects a giant monster mover and takes the matching card that is used to count Victory points and monitor your Life points.  The goal is to reach 20 Victory points before anyone else does – and before you end up with zero Life points.

There are six dice that each have a 1, 2 and 3 which are Victory Points plus three symbols: Energy (thunderbolt), Attack (paw) and Heal (hearts).  On each turn players roll the dice 3 times and keep and re-roll what they want.  At the end of the third roll they “resolve” the dice meaning they have to score any victory points, collect any energy cubes, collect life points and/or attack.  Monsters who aren’t in Tokyo attack the monster only in Tokyo but the monster in Tokyo creates mayhem my attacking EVERYONE!  Energy cubes are used to buy cards, which help you in your journey to conquer Tokyo and your monster adversaries.  It sounds a little complicated, but really isn’t.

The game gets interesting when you have to decide to stay or leave Tokyo because being there can be brutal with attacks coming from every direction, but then it’s pretty fun to be doling out destruction too!  When you decide to abandon ship and leave Tokyo because you’re too wounded to stay, it forces whoever attacked you to enter Tokyo.  The bonus of being in Tokyo is that you receive 2 Victory points every time you start a turn there, so it’s definitely helpful when you’re aiming for 20, the minus is you cannot heal yourself when you’re there even if you roll a heart.

Overall King of Tokyo is a fun game with amazing artwork that will satisfy the gamers and casual gamers in your life.  The one thing I should warn about is that the box says 2-6 players but playing with 2 isn’t anywhere near as interesting – actually I’d call it “clunky” as it just doesn’t play as it should.

King of Tokyo Stats:
~$40 eBay, Specialty Retailers and Amazon.com —> right now it’s hard to find but I know there’s also lots of demand
3-6 players (don’t bother playing with 2)
~20-30 minutes
Ages 8 and Up

What WIKIMEDIA has to say about SOPA and the Anti-SOPA Blackout: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-SOPA_blackout

BoingBoing Going Dark on Jan 18th: http://boingboing.net/2012/01/14/boing-boing-will-go-dark-on-ja.html

What the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has to say about PIPA and SOPA: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech

WordPress’ Call to Action: http://wordpress.org/news/2012/01/help-stop-sopa-pipa/

 

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Show Your Support:

http://publicknowledge.org/e-parasite-stop-online-piracy-act#pipa

http://americancensorship.org/ 

http://www.blackoutsopa.org/

Back in the summer of 2009 I wrote an article on one of my FAVORITE dice games: Can’t Stop by Sid Sackson.  In this article I mentioned that I got my copy back in 2007 and it wasn’t going to be the easiest game to find — but good news for all, NOW IT IS!

You can scroll down to read my original review, but before that I’d like to rave about it’s new design.  The new Gryphon Games version is on the right and the older Face2Face games version is on the left in the pictures below. (*there are many older versions of Can’t Stop, this just happens to be my older copy.)

The games looks pretty similar but there are several improvements that I really appreciate.   First and by far the most important, the movers are so much easier to hold.  Maybe it’s the Industrial Designer in me, but the old game’s movers irked me — but since I loved the game so much I overlooked that they were small and really hard to hold.  When I heard that Gryphon Games was redoing Can’t Stop I was praying they redid the movers — and they did!  The new movers are taller and don’t nest as well but that actually makes it easier to see whose piece is stacked underneath. (see picture at the top of the page for the new version, and scroll down to see the old pieces in action.)  I also appreciate the built in cups in the plastic box insert — they’re not necessary, but boy are they handy!  And when you lift the board up the insert has a spot for the dice and the “runners” which is nice too.  Overall, the only negative I could find is that the new version is a tad bit larger box (13×13) — now, in all fairness, it was already a large game box (12×12) so does the extra inch of height and width make a difference?  Not really.  So go, buy, enjoy and win!  (Updated game stats are listed after the 2009 review below.)

My July 2009 Review:

Today’s pick is Can’t Stop by Sid Sackson.  Currently this dice games tops tall the others because I’m just so addicted to it and it’s an oldie but a goodie.  It was originally published in 1980 by Parker Brothers but was reprinted by Face 2 Face games back in 2007 and that’s when I got my copy.

The game is so easy to learn and play.  You’re trying to move your pieces from the bottom of the board to the top in columns numbered 2-12.  There are only 3 spaces in the 2 and 12 columns and 13 in the 7 column and since 7s are the easiest to roll using a pair of standard dice, it makes sense. The board is shaped like a giant stop sign which is a little ugly, but the shape easily lends itself to the bell curve that defines the odds in rolling dice.  So on a turn, you get 4 dice to roll and once rolled, you choose how to pair up the dice so it’s most advantageous to you.  Then you use 3 “runners” to move your pieces up the columns towards the top of the board.  And since there are only 3 runners you can only attempt 3 columns per turn.  The “Can’t Stop” part of the game comes in when you are holding the dice saying “I can roll just one more time, just once more, I can get a 2,7 or 9…then I’ll stop.”  You end up saying the same thing turn after turn until you gain some willpower to actually stop and move your pieces to where your runners are or you bust and don’t roll a 2,7,9 and the runners are removed from the board and without any advancement of your pieces, you pass the four dice to the next player and say “why did I keep going?!”

As the game progresses people who are really lucky or have the “slow and steady” mentality start to close out columns by reaching the top first.  Once a player closes out a pre-determined number of columns they win.  (The number of columns depends on the number of players.)

The thing about this game that I love isn’t that I have to fight my dice addiction to have a chance of winning – no, it’s that there is some luck mixed with a little mental game too.  The question becomes, how far in the lead do I have to be in a column before I should start working in other columns?  It kind of depends on how if your opponents are lucky, but also how gutsy they are.  It really makes me kind of antsy for my turn – and if I lose I want to play again…right away…because I just can’t stop playing.

So I guess Sid Sackson knew what he was doing when he created this game.  Addictive + fun is always a good combination in my mind.  Somewhere I read a quote from Sid that said something like “games should be easy to learn, give lots of strategic possibilities, include interaction amongst players and be played within 90 minutes.”  He had me until the last part.  I hate long games (which is why you won’t find a review for Monopoly on this site).  I think games should be played in 30 minutes or less and then if I have time to play it again, great.  Besides, it keeps people who want…er need… to win interested in the game even if they are getting killed because they know they have a chance of starting over in a couple minutes.  Ha!

So if you can find it get, yourself a copy of Can’t Stop.  It may be a bit of a hunt to find – try little mom & pop online retailers and eBay, though why someone would want to give up their copy of this classic is beyond me.  Maybe they don’t know what kind of fun they’re missing.

UPDATED Can’t Stop stats:
~$30 Amazon, FunAgain Games, some mom & pop stores
2-4 players
~15-30 minutes
Ages 7 and up (but I think the box says 9)

Maybe.  The Biblical Magi, or Three Kings, were said to have visited Jesus bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh shortly after the reign of “King” Herod the Great, who ruled from 37-4 BC.  They are said to have come “from the east” and it’s disputed whether that means that they were Babylonians, Persians or from Yemen, but that’s all basically the same general area when we’re talking about games at that time.

So regardless of your religious believes and if the Magi were kings, astronomers, astrologers, sorcerers or just plain wise men, games had already been in existence for centuries and there’s a decent chance Melchior, Casper, Balthasar played them.

A recent article on the Discovery News site (see HERE) based on another article published in the journal Antiquity, sums up gaming history in the following way:  board games most likely originated in Egypt and the Fertile Crescent at around 3500 BC and spread to other regions in the Mediterranean and then Europe via the Roman Empire who had that area under it’s control at the time.  India and China also had board games very early on, but their creation dates are unknown.

The article points to two very early examples of board games, one being The Royal Game of Ur (sometimes called “The Game of Twenty Squares” see right) which was unearthed in the Royal Tombs of Ur in Iraq which date back to the First dynasty of Ur, approximately 26th century BC.  The other game is Senet, which is from predynastic Egypt and has 30 squares (versus 20 in Ur) and is dated to approximately 3100 BC.

Now, by the time the Magi were to have lived, Augustus (Octavious) was the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which had spread to include Gaul (France) and the majority of the lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea, including Judea and the city of Jerusalem.  And games had followed “on the coattails of the Roman conquest.”

Games started as a pastime for the elite and wealthy, which makes sense, as they were the ones who had the leisure time to spare.  But as years passed, games were played by men of many castes and, as I mentioned earlier, we don’t know if the Magi were kings, astronomers or something else entirely, but they definitely weren’t apart of the lowest caste of society as they were trekking around with gifts of gold, frankincense (a perfume/incense) and myrrh (an anointing or embalming oil).

So if the Magi were playing games, what kind of games were they playing?  According to Bruce Whitehill, founder of the Association of Game & Puzzle Collectors, many early games are race games or games of conquest “required the strategic capture or entrapment of an opponent’s pieces, or the positioning of your own.”  While that may sound a bit like checkers or chess, they weren’t “invented” for a couple more centuries.

Games at that time were passed from generation to generation and city to city and during their journeys got changed or modified to appeal to the new users.  Which makes it surprising that there are games still played today in a form almost identical to how they were played at the time of the Magi.  What are they?  Mancala and Backgammon

So this hectic holiday season, regardless of what you’re celebrating, sit back and enjoy some games with friends and family.  It’s what mankind’s been doing for centuries!  Have a wonderful holiday and a happy new year!

Here it is, a list of games which will make great gifts and entertain your family during the holidays and the long winter (and my top picks of the games I reviewed in 2011 plus 2 new games).

High Low RACKO, Winning Moves $9 NEW!

I invented it! (so this is somewhat of a shameless plug)  This is rack-less RACKO and players have their 10 cards lined up face-up in front of them.  Players then take turns drawing a card from the deck.  They MUST replace one of their cards with this new card and pass their discard to the next player.  Once the card has gone around the table, the next player draws a card.  Keep an eye on what you’re discarding or you may give your neighbor a win!

City Square Off, Gamewright $20 REVIEW

This is one of those games that I’ve played a lot even after I reviewed it.  Not all of the games I review end up in the regular rotation (because there are so many others I have yet to play and possibly review) but this one did.  It’s a great 2-player tile placement game that’s quick and easy to learn and play and it doesn’t really matter if one player is an adult and the other a tween, it’s still an even match.

Can’t Stop, Gryphon Games $32 REVIEW

IT’S BACK!!!  I’m so excited this Sid Sackson classic push-your-luck game is back on the market (now with Gryphon Games).  Back when I reviewed this game in July 2009 I had found a copy in the UK and had it shipped to me — and let me tell you that is not cheap.  It’s still not a steal at ~$32 BUT it’s worth every penny and with the giant plastic board, you know where some of the money went.  Any dice-game lover on your list will thank you for this one!

Sherlock, Playroom Entertainment $9  REVIEW

This one’s been around for a while, but I just reviewed it this year and LOVED IT.  It’s an adorable twist on memory because you are not just recalling which item is where, but you also have to plot a way to get to a face-up card.  You see, each card has a number and arrow on it and that tells you which card you have to guess next.  It a really fun game and definitely levels the playing field between kids and adults.

Solitaire Chess, Think Fun $20 REVIEW

I mentioned this one in last year’s Holiday Picks article (see HERE) but I hadn’t played it enough to review it yet.  After much post-holiday play, I reviewed it the 2nd week of January because I really enjoyed it.  Sure it’s a solo-play game — and essentially a chess brainteaser — but it’s really satisfying.  In truth, I like the app more than the physical game since you don’t have to bother resetting the board if you screw up.

Split Decision, Mental Floss Games $25 REVIEW

I really mulled over whether or not to include Split Decision on this list — this game was a riot with a large group.  They did such a great job on the cards; they’re hilarious!  BUT  you blow through a lot of cards in one game.  Still if you’re looking for something to play with a large group over the holidays, have 1 person be the reader and designate 1 side of the room “A”, the other “B.”  Losers sit, and play until there’s 1 person left — give them a nice prize. YAY!

Kwizniac, Kwizniac $15-30 NEW!

This giant box of trivia questions is great for a long trip or a lazy day where you don’t want to sit around a board game.  Each card has 10 clues and 1 answer. Read them one at a time starting with 10 and counting down to 1 and if someone gets the answer on say the clue #8, they get 8 points.  Get it?  We decided to cross off the clues we used so we can reuse the cards later.  Great gift for people who take the Trivial Pursuit box with them on vacation!

Halli Galli, Playroom Entertainment $15 REVIEW

I reviewed a couple good speed games this year (Jungle Speed being one of them) but I really enjoyed Halli Galli for a couple reasons.  First, it has a bell which makes winning the round really satisfying.  Second, it requires a little bit of quick math (not a ton) you just have to ring the bell when there are EXACTLY 5 of the same item shown on all the cards.  Great fun for kids and tweens!

Hope you all have been good this year so Santa brings you lots of fun games!  Happy Holidays! - Kim

The game I want most:

…I apparently I can’t get it until spring.  I saw this item in the last 10 minutes of the show and fell in love.  The game’s inventor, David Hoyt, was signing cards with me at the Top Trumps booth earlier in the day and he showed me this product in the 30 seconds he had before meeting Mike Gray from Hasbro to play games for the evening.  It’s called Word Winder andi n this game you use Boggle-like rules to mark letters that form a word in hopes of creating a path from one side of the playing area to the other.  The board is made up of lots of 4×4 letter squares so you can organize them and reorganize them any way you’d like. I cannot wait to get my hands on this one!

Word Winder Stats:

not for sale yet (I hear Mid-March)

Some other games I liked (in no particular order):

Faux•Cabulary by Out of the Box

This is an odd, but fun word-creation party game.  One player draws a card with a definition like “The Synthetic Fur Used to Make Cold Weather Garments” and the other players select 3 dice at random.  The card is read and players roll their dice once and use the face-up word bits to create a word that best fits the definition.  You get results like “AfroPuffFuzz” and “SuperFunkGrub” and the card reader gets to select the winner.  As a quick side note, I played this game with some Mennonites at New York Toy Fair and we had a blast.

Faux•Cabulary Stats:

~$25, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Fat Brain Toys, mom & pop stores

3-7 players

20-30 minutes

Ages 13 and Up

Sutakku by Smirk & Dagger Games

Curt Covert, inventor of Sutakku, stopped me at the fair because he knows I have an affinity for push-your-luck dice games and he was dying to show me Sutakku.  It’s exactly that, a quick-playing, push-your-luck dice game and the goal of each turn is to create a high scoring stack for the highest point total after 5 rounds.   The general rule is to you roll 3 dice and select 2 of them to start or add to your stack.  You always have to stack numbers that are equal or higher than the number on the top of your stack.  There are bonus points for stacking on a 5 of 6 because you’re really pushing your luck and you score by multiplying the number on the top of the stack by the number of dice in the stack.  The one interesting catch is that the dice don’t have regular numbers on them, but instead symbols which I haven’t decided if I love or hate yet.  You don’t get the quick – OH YEA! after you have a good roll, but if your opponent has had one too many beers they might think they busted when they didn’t.  So the jury is still out on the art – but I like the big dice, they feel good to roll (dice game lovers will understand that comment).

Sutakku Stats:

~$25 Amazon.com, mom & pop stores for a location near you: CHECK HERE

1 or more players

15 minutes

Ages 14 and Up

Blindside by Talicor ~$30

Aparently this game sold out on Saturday and while I’m not a huge fan of abstract strategy, I get the appeal of this game.  It’s like checkers mixed with chess on crack.  The board is made up of a bunch of hexagons and each player (max 2) has 7 hexagon movers that have little arrow inserts which dictate how far and which direction it can move.  The goal is to attack your opponent by jumping or landing on them and then removing their arrow(s) which depleates their mobility.  When one player gets all of the arrows, they win.  The board can also change shape so I see the hours of fun this could provide for someone who really digs abstract strategy games.

Blindside Stats:

~$30, Specialty Retailers and Amazon.com

2 players

25-30 minutes (so I’m told)

Ages 10 and Up

Oversight by Griddly Games

I saw this game last ChiTag when it was still in prototype form (another reason ChiTag is so cool!) and this year it was for sale!  This is another abstract strategy but it’s definitely “lite” abstract strategy.  You have a board with 49 tiles (7 rows by 7 columns) and each player has colored coins and their goal is to get 4 in a row.  On their turn, players may either place one of their coins on any tile (the tile colors don’t matter – they’re just to distract you) or shift one of the rows of tiles that has an arrow next to it.  You shift a row by pushing one tile in either end and this shifts all of the tiles and any tokens that are on those tiles.  It’s definitely easier to learn than it is to explain in an article and has a similar feel to Gobblet or X-Ceter-O where it takes some thinking to win. (pic includes Reisa Schwartzman, Oversight inventor)

Oversight  Stats:

~$16-25 Specialty Retailers and Amazon.com (now) and Marbles Stores (next year)

2-4 players

5-20 minutes (depending on how many players and how good they are)

Ages 7 and Up

Doggy Doo by Goliath

It’s a game about a dog that poops a compound (think Play-Doh) and it makes funny noises as the poop is working its way through the dog.  That’s it, that’s all you need to know.  But if you want to know more, kids get to feed the dog a “treat” (the compound) and then they roll a die to see how many times they get to pump the leash (which moves the compound through the dog).  If the dog poops on your turn, you get to clean it up.  The first player to get 3 pieces of poop on their shovel wins.  Wow.

As a side note, this game came from Chicago invention firm Lund and Company (of TMX Elmo fame) and it was invented 15 years ago but didn’t find a home until Goliath picked it up in 2009.  To read more about the game’s history, click HERE.

Doggie Doo  Stats:

~$20 Toys ‘R Us, Walmart, Target, Amazon, AreYouGame.com and more

2-4 players

~10-15 minutes

Ages 4 and Up

Pick Me by Tree Toys, not for sale yet

Plastic Barbie-like arms in a cup?  Yea – I didn’t care what this game was about, it already had me laughing!  You use little guitars to flick picks into the cup of arms and if you get one to stick you win!

I should also mention that this game was so popular with people walking by that most of the parts for the sample that was out were stolen.  While that must mean they like it, shame on fair goers for depriving other gamers from testing this one out!

Pick Me Stats:

not for sale yet

Some other notable games I feel I must mention:

GameChanger by Identity Games

This game has been all over the news and they had a huge, popular booth – which was probably also the best-looking one at the fair!  If you haven’t heard about GameChanger, it’s a game board that you use with your iPad (yep, you plug it into the board).  So now your board game has sound, video and is interactive.  Right now it retails for $80 which is pricey, but the game board is like an extension of your ipad and it recognizes were your mover is on the board.  The starter kit has 2 games and I hear there are going to be more game “skins” in the future so hopefully you’ll get a lot of mileage out of the $80 starter kit. (Pic taken by GameChanger — mine was blurry!)

Pajaggle by Pajaggle Inc.

I heard that the Pajaggle people had a great show and their product will soon have a much greater distribution.  Congrats to them!  Pajaggle is like a far more complex version of Perfection, just without the popping mechanism and annoying ticking timer.  The pieces are extremely intricate which makes it a little harder to find their home space and some pieces even nest inside of others.  The game play is pretty straightforward, race another person or race against yourself – it does come with a timer.  There are some other little games but sadly a bunch of them require two sets or more to play and at $30 a pop it can get really expensive so fingers crossed that their greater distribution will bring the price down.  UPDATE: Additional piece packs will be available soon for $12.99.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/161/kim-vandenbroucke-game-inventor 

Okay, I’m tooting my horn right now and I think the article is pretty bad-ass.  BUT what I really want all of you to know that they contacted me via twitter (although I have no idea how they picked me) and a strong — or at least decent — social media presence can really help your brand (personal or products).  Food for thought on this Thanksgiving weekend.

First, thanks to all of you who voted for me – it just wasn’t my year.  I will say, I’m okay losing to Susan McKinley Ross; she’s a great inventor and her game Qwirkle won the Spiel des Jahres, so it only seems fitting that she took home the trophy!  Congratulations Susan!

Despite my loss, the evening was quite a success!  Again it was held at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry and this year the museum is hosting a Dr. Seuss exhibit which was quite cool!  Dinner even had a Seuss theme to it – Roast Beast and Thing 1, Thing 2 desserts!  I got pretty lucky and sat with fellow nominee Rory O’Conner who was nominated for the Rising Star award for his invention Rory’s Story Cubes.  We also sat with some new inventors and the always-funny Jason Schneider from Gamewright.  Even more impressive (sorry Rory & Jason!) during the ceremony I sat by Alan Hassenfeld, retired chairman of Hasbro and grandson of Harry Hassenfeld, who began Hasbro with his brother Helal.  Actually it started as “Hassenfeld Brothers” which got shortened to Hasbro in the 1960s – but seriously, could you imagine what it would be like to grow up in such a prominent toy family?!  I’d love to pick his brain for an hour!

Onto the ceremony, Tim Walsh was an AMAZING host (again)!  Tim’s the inventor of Blurt! and co-inventor of TriBond and did a little film called TOYLAND but I really think his calling is hosting awards shows!  The keynote of the evening was given by Richard Levy (at left), who has been an inventor in the toy and game industry for more than 35 years and is the co-developer of Furby and the game he’s probably best known for is Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.  He also co-wrote “The Toy and Game Inventor’s Handbook” (which I have on my bookshelf) with Ron Weingartner, who I saw during cocktail hour.  Seriously, with ~400 guests this year it really was a HUGE industry event packed with some amazing people!  During the keynote Richard shared stories from his life as an inventor and talked about the earlier days in the industry.  He had a long list of advice for the newbie inventors – and as I’m writing this now, I wish I would have been taking notes but truthfully I was too nervous to think about it.

After Richard’s legnthy keynote, the awards began and the winners are as follows:

Excellence in Toy Design • Marty Abrams & Joel Rosenzweig, Fyr Flyz

Excellence in Game Design • Susan McKinley Ross, Qwirkle

Rising Star Inventor • Blake English, The Air Swimmers

Excellence in Character Creation • Theodor Seuss Geisel (see a theme here?)

Young Inventor of the Year • Greyson MacLean, BrickStix (and if you didn’t see him on Conan, you must watch! HERE)

Excellence in Electronic Adaptation of an Existing Toy or Game • Tom Liddell, Top Trumps

Hassenfeld Family Initiatives Humanitarian Award • Sir Torquil Norman (who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2007 and is best known for Polly Pocket)

In Memoriam Recognitions:

Elliot Handler (founder of Mattel)

James Becker (developer of Gumby & Pokey, Barrel of Monkeys, and Othello)

Lifetime Achievement Award • Burt Meyer

Burt started his career at Marvin Glass and Associates in the mid 1950s and retired after founding Meyer/Glass Design (where I started my career).  He is responsible for some pretty classic inventions: Lite Brite, Mouse Trap, Toss Across, Rock’Em Sock’Em and many others.  Great story about Lite Brite is that it was licensed to Merrill Hassenfeld (the president of Hasbro at the time and Alan Hassenfeld’s father) the day it was shown.  Burt demonstrated the prototype to Merrill; he tried it and said “That’s my Item!”  Marvin Glass and Merrill got the deal done the same day.

Amazing!  — which also pretty much sums up the whole evening!