For those of you who have been to ChiTAG in the past, you know that it’s a mix of mass-market games from larger manufacturers and mass-appeal specialty games from medium to very small manufacturers.  Overall, I’d say that the majority games appeal to casual gamers and families and here’s a small taste of what you’re going to see:

Educational Insights  

I’m so excited that they have a booth this year because they have so many fun games in beautiful packaging!  First there’s Buck Buck Moose by Mary Jo Reutter, who was last year’s TAGIE winner for Excellence in Game Design!  Buck Buck Moose is a speed game for kids 4+ and you lay out 4 stacks of colored Moose cards, which have the most adorable drawings.  Then players take turns pulling long skinny cards out of a cardboard holder – which will either be Buck, the ranger, or a Moose!  When a Moose card is pulled, players race to slap the matching colored Moose and they get to keep that card.  Player with the most cards wins!

They also have The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game! (invented by their very own Riley Wilkinson) and I raved about this game’s adorable packaging right after New York Toy Fair. (see HERE)  Thankfully, it’s not just a cute box – it’s also a fun game for kids 3+!  Players use squirrel-shaped tweezers to grab and steal acorns to complete their stash.  There are just so many cute things about this game that I’d like to post a bunch of pictures, but instead I’m just going to say “go to their booth!”  After seeing it I’m sure you’ll FIND a 3-4 year old to buy it for!

I should mention that Educational Insights doesn’t do just children’s games – they also have games like KaBAM!, a word-building card game for players 7+. Flip over 2 cards and use this 2-letter combo to create a word.  So if the cards are A and C if I yell “ACROSS” before my opponent yells “PACK” then I would win the pair of cards.  There’s also a KaBAM! round that adds some variety to the game, but I want to give the folks at their booth something to talk about.

Buck Buck Moose Stats:
~$12 ChiTag, EducationalInsights.com, Amazon.com
3-6 players
~10 minutes
Ages 4-7

The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Game Stats:
~$20 ChiTag, EducationalInsights.com, Amazon.com
2-4 players
~10 minutes
Ages 3-5

KaBAM! Stats:
~$13 ChiTag, EducationalInsights.com, Amazon.com
2-4 players (although I recommend at least 4)
~15-20 minutes (you decide how many rounds you want to play!)
Ages 7 and Up

MindWare

A new exhibitor this year, MindWare is a catalog company that creates “brainy toys for kids of all ages” and works with inventors like Peggy Brown and Susan McKinley Ross to create fun, puzzle-like games.  Susan, who is up against me for the TAGIE for Excellence in Game Design, invented MindWare’s best selling game Qwirkle.  Qwirkle is a family game where players create lines of tiles with matching colors or shapes similar to the crossword-style play of Scrabble.

My favorite MindWare game was invented by Peggy Brown, and it’s called Q-bitz (reviewed HERE).  Q-bitz is a game where you use patterned dice to solve visual challenges and there’s going to be an oversized version of the game at ChiTAG with cubes that are 1 foot by 1 foot!  This is definitely a booth to stop by!

Qwirkle Stats:
~$25 ChiTag, MindWare.com, Amazon.com
2-4 players
~30-45 minutes
Ages 6 and Up

North Star Games 

I’ve reviewed their Wits & Wagers and Wits & Wagers Family games (see HERE and HERE) but they’ve come out with an interesting new game called Crappy Birthday.  I’ll admit I haven’t played this one yet, but I know it’s going to give at least a couple good laughs because the game is about giving and receiving bad gifts — and who hasn’t gotten a bad gift they laugh about years later?!

Crappy Birthday Stats:
~$15 ChiTag, Amazon.com
2-4 players
~30 minutes (or so the box says…)
Ages 8 and Up

ThinkFun

I’m a big fan of their single-player challenge game Solitaire Chess (reviewed HERE) – especially the iPhone app.  ThinkFun also has a bunch of great games like Zingo (see HERE) and Smart Mouth, but personally I’m looking forward to trying out their new word-search, single-player challenge game, PathWords, in which you use see-through Tetris-like pieces to mark words by covering the letters on a grid.  Does that make sense?  Well one look at the picture and you get what I’m trying to say.  Worth a peek I’m sure!

PathWords Stats:
~$20 ChiTag, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and anywhere that sells ThinkFun products
1 players
Play as long as you’d like
Ages 12 and Up

Spin Master

Yes, they’re in the game business!  And I believe they’ll be showing games like Quelf, which is like Cranium on Red Bull, and it’s counterpart Quelf Junior which is a game of wacky stunts for kids which is funny for a little while but didn’t have as much variety as Quelf.  Spin Master is also the one manufacturing Greg Zima’s game Stomple, which I talked about last year and reviewed this spring (see HERE).  Greg is another inventor who is nominated for the TAGIE for Excellence in Game Design.  I hear that there might be an oversized Stomple game at ChiTag, which would be really cool!

Quelf Stats:
~$25 ChiTag, Amazon.com, Target, Toys R Us, Barnes & Noble
3-8 players
~30 minutes
Ages 12 and Up

and the best for last…..Top Trumps

If I had to give ONE reason to go this year, what’s going on at the Top Trumps booth is it.  Yes, they have the World Record challenge happening with the Girl Scouts – but that’s not it.  They’ve giving away FOR FREE the Toy & Game Guru Top Trumps decks – and they’ve scheduled almost all of the inventors in the deck to be at their booth (#603) signing their cards!!  Yes, I’m lucky enough to be in the deck, so PLEASE stop by sometime between 12pm-12:45 on Saturday to say hi and pick up your free deck!!   I can tell you right now that I’m REALLY exciting about getting my deck signed by some famous inventors that I will most definitely geek-out about meeting!

Top Trumps Toy & Game Guru Stats:
*FREE* at ChiTag — and it is ONLY available at Chitag
2-4 players
~10 minutes to play — hours of fun reading all the inventor bios!
Ages 6 and Up

Some other companies you’ll see at the fair (and I’ve gone nuts linking each to a review of one of their games): Endless Games, Bananagrams, Find-It Games, Fun Q Games, Out of the Box, Buffalo Games, Rio Grande Games, also Mayfair Games, Talicor, Zobmondo, Moosetache Games, Smirk and Dagger, HL Games, Griddly Games…and I’m sorry to anyone I might have missed!

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

Since I just got back from a trip to beautiful Las Vegas, it seems like a great time to review a game with a gambling theme.  I’m talking about Wits & Wagers!

North Star Games was nice enough to send me a copy to review which I was thrilled about since it’s been on my “to buy and try” list for a very long time.  Truthfully, I’m not a big gambler; in fact I lost $4.52 in Vegas.  (I was playing the penny slots…but that’s 452 pennies!!  Thank god I don’t bet dollars!)

But enough about my issues, let’s talk about the game.  I loved it!  It’s trivia meets gambling and the best thing is you really don’t have to know much trivia to win.  Here’s the scoop.  Every round starts with a trivia question being read.  Each player (or team) scrawls an answer on their card.  Answers are always numbers their easily organized on the nice fabric mat in numerical order and then people place their bets.  The numbers that are at the extremes – the highest and the lowest – pay out at the highest odds, whereas the numbers in the middle of the pack will only pay out 2-1 or 3-1.  Regardless, you’re looking for the number closest to the correct answer.

Betting is really interesting in this game because numbers closer to the middle seem to indicate that they’re a safe bet, but  you also want to pay attention to who wrote the answer.  For example, one of the questions is “The record time for the Daytona 500 car race was set in 1980.  In miles per hour, what was the winner’s average speed?”  I’m probably not going to go with my sister’s answer because she doesn’t know much about cars.  Years ago she thought the coolant tank was where the windshield washer fluid went in her car, so of course I’d be much more likely to go with a gear-head friend who has a vague idea of what the answer might be.  And if the question was “In what year was the first G.I Joe action figure sold?” I’d go with my friend Scott because he probably has enough G.I. Joes to give one to each citizen of Rhode Island.  However, if it’s something that is completely off everyone’s radar like “How many feet of wire are in a flattened Slinky?” it may be time to rely on what ends up near the center of the board – or go for the big score if I think it’s one of the more extreme answers and worth higher odds.

In Wits & Wagers, all answers are closest without going over so it has a little bit of that classic Price is Right feel that we all love.  The only thing I didn’t like is that I have to get a big group of people together to play it.  While you can play it with 4 players, it is so much more fun when you have closer to 6 or 7 and it can be played with up to 20.

Overall Wits & Wagers is a trivia game that you really don’t need to be that great at trivia for.  It helps if you know your opponents but if you were a rock star at multiple-choice tests back in school, you’re golden.

Wits & Wagers Stats:
~$24-$30 at Target, Borders and Amazon.com
4-20 Players
~ 25 Minutes
Ages 8 and up