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)

Sometimes it takes me a little while to review a game that’s been on the market for years but I really enjoy.  And even though these games aren’t NEW they’re still worth reviewing because games don’t “go bad” unless they’re trivia based or heavily rely on pop culture or politics.  It’s what makes games so great!  If you pick up a game from the 1950s, odds are very good that it’s still playable (provided none of the key pieces wandered off in the last 60 years).  This week’s game isn’t quite that old, but it was a 2003 nominee for the Kinderspiel des Jahres* so it’s been out for close to a decade, but it would still be just as good if it came out a month ago.  What game am I talking about?  It’s Sherlock, Sherlock! An elementary game of memory and deduction. (that’s the last bad joke in the article, I promise.)

Sherlock is essentially a memory game – but a memory game that does not bore the adults!  The game starts with 8 cards placed face-up in a circle around the rest of the deck.  Players take time memorizing the pictures on each card and then they are flipped face-down.  The youngest player gets to be Sherlock first and they take the Sherlock mover (which is a card, see right) and place it above whichever face-down card they’d like to guess.   Then they guess and flip it over.  If they’re wrong their turn is over and you have to wonder what they were doing for the last minute instead of memorizing pictures!  If they’re correct the card stays face-up they get to continue and guess again – and this is where the game gets fun!  There are red arrows next to a number on the top of every card and that indicates which direction and how many cards over you need to go.  Where the Sherlock mover lands is the card you MUST guess next.  If you can’t recall correctly, your turn is over and all the cards are flipped over again.  But if you’re right you keep that card face-up and advance the Sherlock mover based on what the number and arrow says.  When the Sherlock mover finally lands on a face-up card you get to collect it and replace it with a new one from the deck (of course showing everyone what it is before you place it face-down).  Then make sure all of the cards are face-down and it’s the next player’s turn.  The goal is to be the first player to collect 6 cards.

What is so amazing about this game is that after a little bit you’ll realize that you can plan out shorter moves by remembering the number and arrow direction on the cards.  I also like that you can play with 6 (easiest), 7, or 8 (hardest) cards in the circle without taking away the fun and excitement of the game.  Sherlock was invented by Reinhard Staupe and this spring I wrote about another one of Reinhard Staupe’s games, Saddle Up! which is another cute game for kids 5 and up.  In that article I gave a little information about the inventor and if you’d like to read about Reinhard or Saddle Up! click HERE.

* The Kinderspiel des Jahres is awarded every year (since 1989, although prior to 2001 it was called the “Sonderpreis Kinderspiel”) to the best children’s game judged by German game critics.  It’s the “kid sister” to the Spiel des Jahres which is awarded to the best family game.

Sherlock Stats:

• ~$7-10 Amazon.com, FunagainGames.com, and some mom & pop game stores
• 2-5 players
• ~15 min. (but it kind of depends on how good you are at remembering!)
• Ages 5 and up

Great two player games don’t cross my desk all that often.  I find that a lot of games say they can be played with two players but for a really great experience, you need more than 2 players.  Not with this week’s game – because it’s a true two player game.  Like backgammon or chess, you can only play City Square Off with two players – and I’m addicted.

I mentioned Gamewright’s City Square Off in one of my 2011 Toy Fair trends articles (you can see it HERE).  I talked about how tile-placement games (ala Blokus and Cir*Kis) were still on the rise and although the trend may start to feel stale soon, I though that City Square Off was different and fun.  And I was so right!  At Toy Fair I rarely get to play games from start to finish, so I only get the general idea of what is going on and if it might be fun.  And City Square Off is.  Gamewright was nice enough to send me a copy to try out and we played about 20 times over Memorial Day weekend alone.

In City Square Off each player starts with a board and a “city.” I like using the city I’ve lovingly dubbed “the Skywalker Residence” because it looks like the place Luke grew up on Tatooine (okay maybe not a lot like it…but it does look like it belongs on Tatooine).  There are three other cities to choose from and it really doesn’t matter which one you pick but it needs to be placed over the Gamewright logo in the middle of your board.  From there, the cards are shuffled and then the top one is flipped over.  Both players take the piece shown on the card and place it adjacent to their City.  Pieces can be rotated in any direction and even flipped over so how you put it on the board is up to you, it just must be touching the City or, as the game progresses, another piece.  The game ends when a player cannot place a piece on their board without it hanging off the side.  If both players can’t place a piece on the same turn, then each person counts up the biggest mass of adjacent open spaces and whoever has the highest number wins!

There are also a couple game variations in the box that are just as fun to play, but I’ll let you discover them on your own.   I highly recommend this game and hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Note: I also have to give mad props to whoever designed their packaging.  The box looks great — but it’s the inside packaging that made me melt.  There is a black plastic piece sorter that has 4 spaces: 2 for the colored tiles, one for cities and one for cards — and oh my gosh – the boards snap in place like a lid so the don’t get all jumbled up inside the box.  OUTSTANDING!

City Square Off Stats

• ~$20 Amazon.com, FatBrainToys.com, Gamewright.com and some mom & pop retailers
• 2 players ONLY
• ~8-10 minutes per game
• Ages 8 and up is what the box says…I say 6 and up

As many of my regular readers know, I’m not really a fan of abstract strategy games.  They’re just not my thing, but every once in a while I come across one that I can’t help but love.  I first played Stomple at the 2010 Chicago Toy and Game Fair and included it in my “ChiTAG picks” article (See HERE).  And now that I’ve had a chance to subject some of my play testers to it, I think it deserves it’s own article complete with great inventor story!

To remind you quickly how to play (if you didn’t read the ChiTAG Picks article), the board is a 7×7 grid of marbles and players use “Stompers” to push the different colored marbles through holes in the board.  On your turn you push down or “stomp” a marble adjacent to your Stomper’s position on the board.  If there is a marble of the same color adjacent to the one you just stomped you must do that one too until there are no marbles of the same color next your stomper.  At anytime you may move to another part of the board by jumping to and stomping a marble that matches the color of your Stomper.  This is particularly useful when you find your Stomper with no marbles around you since you MUST stomp a marble on each turn.  If you can’t stomp a marble on your turn you must remove you Stomper from the board and you’re done for the round.  But if your Stomper is the last one on the board you get 1 point for each marble left and 3 points for special red cat’s eye marbles.

Greg Zima, of GaZima Games, is the inventor of Stomple – although he initially called it “Stomp.”  He came up with the idea of stomping marbles through a board and thought it was a fun, toy-esque concept but the game play didn’t come together right away.  At first he thought of stomping things around a track but really, it just wasn’t right.  So he did what a lot of inventors do when they’re stumped.  He tossed it on the backburner and let it simmer in the back of his brain for a while.  About 18 months later he had the “ah ha!” moment he was waiting for.  The game play was developed in just a couple days and his business partner Stefan Maroudis put together a prototype and they play tested it until they thought it was pretty close to perfect. (See pic of prototype above, courtesy of Greg Zima)

Stomple is manufactured by Spin Master and first time the game was shown to them, they weren’t interested because they weren’t doing games.  The second time, however, was a totally different story.  In Greg’s words:

Stefan and I were at the licensing show and we always bring a couple of games with us even if we don’t have meetings – just in case.  We called Ben Dermer (Spin Master) and asked him if we could meet and he said ‘meet me in 5 minutes’ and we literally had to run, in our suits and dress shoes, across the conference center all the way up do Ben’s room — it had to have been about a mile!  When we got there we were out of breath, but we showed him the game.  He LOVED it and pretty much optioned it on the spot!

Fast-forward to now, Stomple was just named one of the Mensa Select award winners earlier this spring, which is extremely cool!  I asked Greg if he found it difficult to license an abstract strategy game and he admitted that earlier on they tried to add some faces to the marbles to give it a theme and some artwork, but he said,

“Really you just have to remind [inventor relations people] that there are other very successful abstract strategy games out there like Tetris and Blokus.  But it helped that our game also incorporated the toy-esque stomping.”

I agree that the stomp is super-satisfying to the point that I kind of don’t mind if I’m losing because it’s so enjoyable to stomp marbles on every turn.  I also like that the games are quick so if I happen to lose, we can play again right and way and I can regain my position as supreme stomper.

Stomple Stats:

• ~$30 at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and many others
• 2-5 Players
• ~5 minutes per round
• Ages 8 and Up

Now because I don’t want this article to be one paragraph – it kind of doesn’t do the game justice – I’ll delve a little deeper into the game play.  The setup is simple, mix up the deck of cards (you can’t really shuffle them because they’re too stiff) and place them in a stack.  Take the top two cards and place them next to each other so nothing matches (neither color NOR object can match either horizontally, vertically or diagonally.)  These two cards start the playing area.  Next, one player will flip over 2 cards at the same time for the whole table to see.  Everyone looks and tries to find a place to play one of the two cards where they won’t create any matches.

You would think the “no match” thing would be pretty easy – but it’s amazing how many times you screw up!  So when you think you’ve found a spot you yell “WHOA!” (or more likely “I’ve got it!”) and show were the card goes.   If you’re correct, it stays there and you collect the other card and the player with the most cards at the end of the game wins.  If you were wrong, you’re out for the round AND you must discard one of your cards.  The game is over when you run out of cards in the draw deck.

Saddle Up! also has 2 other game variants in it, which are okay – but I really liked the “no match” game the best.  After a while it’s amazing that your brain actually feels like it’s getting a little workout. Since the game requires no reading, it’s good family fun.  Adult’s brains aren’t wasting away from sheer boredom (like some other children’s games) and kids have a chance of winning.   It also plays well with 2 players all the way up to a larger group (up to 6 players).

On the invention side of things, Saddle Up! is the brainchild of Germany’s Reinhard Staupe (I know that because his name is on the box).  But Reinhard has also invented other games with Playroom Entertainment (Sherlock, Trading Faces) and  games you may remember Blink (Out of the Box, Mattel) and Ricochet (Gamewright) in addition to many, MANY others.  Like most inventors, it took him a little while to break out into the business.  He invented his first game in 1989 but didn’t sign a licensing contract until 5 years later.  You can read a nice interview of him on The Dice Tower website (see HERE).  My favorite part was a question regarding the difference between German and American game markets and he says “As far as I’m concerned, the basic structures of the American and the German markets are the same: The more complex a game is the more difficult it is to sell.”  Duly noted.

Saddle Up! Stats:

• ~$8-10 Amazon.com, FunagainGames.com, and some mom & pop game stores
• 2-6 players
• 10-15 min.
• Ages 5 and up

Earlier this week I posted an interview with Mary Jo Reutter who won the TAGIE award for Excellence in Game Design in November of 2010 and you can see that article HERE.  But now it’s time to take a peek at some of her games and Mary Jo has AGAIN been nice enough to share some tidbits about how the games changed from her initial prototype – which is something I always find interesting!

First up, Laundry Jumble by Educational Insights.  While this game has roots in the 1967 game Feeley Meeley I think that the updated theme is adorable.  During the game players select a card with an image of an article of clothing on it.  They reach into the “dryer” and try to feel around to find the correct fabric item.  If they do, the player gets to keep the card.  If you pull the “Skunk’s Undies” you need to return a card you’ve already collected.  (ugh!)  Regardless, of whether you pull the correct item or not, it goes right back into the dryer so there’s always tons of stuff in there.

Mary Jo:

“When I pitched Laundry Jumble I called it “Tumble Jumble” (and I think some of the older cards even still say Tumble Bumble).  We loved the name Tumble Jumble, but it was taken, so Educational Insights had to make a change to “The Laundry Jumble Game”. The prototype had a spinning mechanism and also folded flat.  Originally the child was to roll a die to see how many times they’d turn the dryer before reaching in to find the item. Unfortunately this didn’t cost out low enough so we had to lose that feature. Fortunately the play was not compromised.  I’m very pleased that Educational Insights was able to keep the fabric for the construction of the dryer — one of the sweet subtleties of the fabric construction is that the dryer begins getting warm as your hand reaches around searching for the right piece of clothing.  And I’m also very pleased that they were able to get the small details in all of the clothing items. The Skunk’s Undies are a favorite!” (See Mary Jo’s prototype at left – wow that looks just about the same!)

Second is her mini-line of Flip-A-Longs with Fat Brain Toys.  There’s a train version called “Long Long Locomotive” and a medieval version called “Knights of the Long Table” but both play exactly the same.  It’s a matching game but instead of matching the same thing, players must match two halves of the same scene.  In the locomotive version each player starts with an engine and each time they get a match they add this new car to their train.  Obviously, the player with the longest train wins.

Mary Jo:

“The Flip-A-Long theme that was originally pitched was “Lenny’s Limo” — a long stretch limo with different sets of interesting passengers inside.  We changed that theme out for Knights of the Long Table, and Long Long Locomotive.  This game is much like a standard match game in that you can have a lot of different themes, and the twist of using your winning pieces to create a long scene.  The kids are much better at the memory and matching than most of the adults who play!  I like it when kids can genuinely beat their parents at a game.” (see Mary Jo’s prototype at left – it’s super cute!)

Even though the previous two have classic game play roots, I really enjoyed them both.  I thought that Mary Jo really improved upon Feeley Meeley (especially cute fabric instead of weird plastic tchotchkes, click HERE to find out more about Feeley Meeley if you have no idea what I’m talking about.) and making memory/matching play FAR more interesting and visually appealing.

The last game I’m going to review was probably my least favorite out of the three I’m reviewing here, but it definitely gets BIG points for cute!   (But note, that I’m not entirely sold on games action games like Rock’em Sock’em that are essentially toys with rules that are designed for kids — I’m sure skews my rankings.)  Sumo Ham Slam is a game about Sumo hamsters, which in itself is hilarious.  Players battle their hamsters using a wand that goes underneath the plastic board and magnetically attaches to their hamster.  It’s a battle of the bulge with each hamster trying to push the other out of the ring.  Along the way you earn food which are little white discs that adds to your hamster’s bulk when you shove it down their gullet.  The funny theme mixed with the cute characters really makes it a great birthday party gift for any kid 6-9.

Mary Jo:

“Sumo Ham Slam was originally called Masu Masu (which means More! More! in Japanese). The brilliant addition of the hamsters goes to Jason Schneider at Gamewright!  The game play and mechanisms stayed the same, and the hamsters and fantastic name just take it over the top in wacky.” (see her prototype at left, click to enlarge)

Thanks again to Mary Jo for all of her help and the great prototype pics she was awesome enough to send along!

Laundry Jumble Stats:

~$25 at Amazon, Target.com,  QVC, EducationalInsights.com, mom & pop retailers
2 to 4 players
~5-10 minutes
Ages 6 and Up

Flip-A-Longs Stats:

~$13 at Fat Brain Toys ONLY
2 to 4 players
~5-10 minutes
Ages 4 and Up

Sumo Ham Slam Stats:

~$20-25 at Amazon, Fun Again Games, mom & pop retailers
2 to 6 players
~10-15 minutes
Ages 6 and Up

Every holiday season at some point I end up raiding the game shelves at my father’s house looking for something to play.  I’ll admit that over the years, I’ve “liberated” many of my favorites and they now reside in one of my game cabinets, but there are some that I’ve left for sentimental reasons (and there are others that haven’t made the cross-town journey simply because I’m afraid of the wrath if he noticed they were gone). The games at my father’s house are classics from my childhood and earlier.  If something happened to them, some may be impossible to replace but others you can still find on store shelves, because good games are like that, they don’t die – they get reincarnated.

Most of the time games are resurrected using the same name to give consumers that warm-fuzzy nostalgia feeling; great examples out now are Bed Bugs, Hedbanz, Shark Attack, Mall Madness and Rock’Em Sock‘Em Robots.  All except Rock’Em Sock’Em (it’s a bit before my time) were out when I was a kid, disappeared for a while and came back.  Bed Bugs even reused the artwork from the 1985 box when Patch Products rereleased it this year, so it looks just like it did when I was putting it on my wish list for Santa.  On the other hand, Spin Master had some really dated box art for Hedbanz and opted to give the game a facelift, which resulted in a far more appealing package.  But either way if the reincarnated game was notable enough, the product should evoke memories of playing with friends, wishing for it to appear under the Christmas tree or even fuzzy recollections of the game’s commercial.

This “reincarnation” phenomenon isn’t exclusive to the game industry.  Toy brands, shoe brands, car brands, beverage brands, video game brands all go through cycles like this too, but what makes it interesting in the board game arena is that products don’t always stay with their initial manufacturer.  In fact, neither Hedbanz nor Bed Bugs is with the company that originally released it.  Hedbanz has been published here in the US by IRWIN Games, Pressman Toy, Western Publishing and many international manufacturers.  Bed Bugs doesn’t have quite as lengthy of a history, having only been published by Milton Bradley before being picked up by Patch Products.  So why all the jumping around?  Sometimes this is due to a “trickledown” effect.  Hasbro now owns Milton Bradley and they may not have thought that Bed Bugs could sell the volume of games needed for them to spend money to promote the product or maybe they’re focused on building their core brands and didn’t have room for it, either way it ends up with a smaller company who has the time to nurture and rebuild the brand.  Other times it’s in the hands of the inventor to find their game a new manufacturer “home.”  Regardless, it’s obvious that well-loved games have multiple lives and don’t disappear forever – which is good, because there are a couple I’m hoping to see again!

Part 2 – The Reviews

Instead of explaining Bed Bugs I think you can just take a peek at the “vintage” commercial:

Remember that?  And obviously, with New York’s little bed bug problem this year, the rerelease of this game is extremely timely.

Now, I couldn’t find a commercial for Hedbanz, but I’ll explain it for those of you who don’t recall how to play.  Everyone wears a band on their head with a card clipped in it.  Cards have a picture and say “I am a [image word].”   Players don’t know what picture is on their card, but obviously they can see the cards of the other players.  Everyone takes turns asking questions in a “20-questions like fashion” until they can guess what’s on their card.  The quicker you can guess what you are, the more likely it is that you’ll win.  Overall, everyone looks a little silly — but it just adds to the laughs!

Bed Bugs Stats:

~$15 at Amazon, Meijer, Are You Game, Wal-Mart
2 to 4 players
~5-10 minutes
Ages 6 and Up

Hedbanz Stats:

~$15 at Amazon, Target, Toys’RUs (which also has the exclusive Hedbanz for Adults for $17)
2 to 6 players
~20-30 minutes (depending on the number of players)
Ages 7 and Up

ChiTag was over more than a week ago, and I’ve yet to do a recap but it’s because I have to PLAY the games I found there before I review them to make sure I actually like them.  (duh)  This year there were TONS of games to play and buy at the open-to-the-public fair on Chicago’s Navy Pier and I covered a bunch of them in the preview article and I’ve also written articles about many of the games like Word on the Street, Triviathon, Blurt and Backseat Drawing.  But there were two new games that stood out when I made my rounds.

The first game embodies WHY to go to the fair.  The game is Eleminis and it’s the first game from a company called Smileypop.  The inventor, his family and friends were working the booth teaching people how to play the easy-to-learn card game and selling it to anyone interested in taking a copy home.  This kind of product is definitely going to be hard to find in stores and I often don’t review games with distribution as small as theirs because it’s too hard for you, my wonderful readers, to find and buy.  And it’s just mean for me to say “it’s awesome, but good luck finding one!”

In Eleminis the goal is to collect 5 different Elimini (Plant, Air, Water, Rock and Fire). Every player can have up to 5 cards in front of them at a time and on your turn you draw a card and place an Elemini in a blank space in front of you, or you can replace one of your own or one of your opponent’s Eleminis.   Each Elemini card can replace 2 other Eleminis and these icons are shown in the corner of the card.  This allows you to replace one of your own eleminis if you have a duplicate or you can make trouble for your opponents and create duplicates in their set of cards by replacing one of their eleminis.  In the deck there are also cards that allow you to move a card from one player to another, discard Eleminis and swap Eleminis which keeps things interesting.  Then there are there are Stars which are wild Eleminis and the black sheep of the family, the Trash which you need to remove from your hand before you win.  The game takes less than a minute to learn and plays well with 3-5 players (although I didn’t have a chance to test it with more than 5, I can say it wasn’t my fave with just 2 players.)

The other game I played A LOT at the fair is a game from a large manufacturer you may have heard of, Spin Master.  They got back into the world of games after buying some of Imagination Entertainment’s products and adding some new stuff to their portfolio including this new game called Stomple.  It’s very easy abstract strategy and the goal is to be the last player to have their Stomper on the board.  The board is a 7×7 grid of marbles and players use Stompers to push these different colored marbles through the holes the marbles sit in.  On your turn you push down or “stomp” a marble adjacent to your Stomper’s position on the board.  If there is a marble of the same color adjacent to the one you just stomped you must do that one too until there are no marbles of the same color next your stomper.  At anytime you may move to another part of the board by jumping to and stomping a marble that matches the color of your Stomper.  This is particularly useful when you find your Stomper with no marbles nearby since you MUST stomp a marble on each turn.  If you can’t stomp a marble on your turn you must remove you Stomper from the board and you’re done for the round.  But if your Stomper is the last one on the board you get 1 point for each marble left and 3 points for special red cat’s eye marbles.  You can play by counting rounds won or play to a certain total, either way it’s quick and very satisfying to stomp stuff!

Both of these games are quick to learn and play which makes them fun to play both at game fairs and at home.  And a quick thanks to Greg Zima, inventor of Stomple and Matt Laird, inventor of Eleminis for showing me their games at the fair!

Eleminis Stats:
~$11 at Amazon
2-8 Players (not great with 2 players)
~5-10 minutes per round
Ages 7 and Up

Stomple Stats:
~$30 at Amazon now and Barnes & Noble soon
2-4 Players
~5 minutes per round
Ages 8 and Up

I first got to play with Scrabble Flash at the Hasbro showroom of New York Toy Fair this past February and I desperately wanted to take it home with me, but I’m pretty sure that the hoards of other people waiting to play would have noticed.  It’s just so cute and magical that it’s hard not to like it!  The game is made up of five small LCD square tiles that recognize when they are touching each other, which allows the tiles to identify if they are in the proper order to make a word.  This concept is the backbone of all three games you can play with your Scrabble Flash tiles.

When you turn all of the tiles on by pressing each of their buttons, the tiles give you a choice of games 1, 2 or 3.  Game 1 is a 1-player game in which you find as many 3, 4, and 5 letter words as you can from one set of letters before the little timers appear on the screens.  Every time you line up the tiles to make a word they flash to let you know that the word’s been counted.  In a way it feels a lot like the old Boggle handheld just with fewer letters to choose from.

Game 2 is also a 1-player game where you find as many 5-letter words as you can in the allotted time.  After you find a word, you get a new set of letters to unscramble.  The third game is the same as game 2, but it’s for multiple players.  Once you get a word you pass the tiles to the next player.  If time runs out while you’re looking for a word it will display OUT and you have to pass the tiles to the next player.  Last man standing wins.

The cute little tiles also score!  At the end of game 1 if you line up the 5 tiles your score will appear as well as how many words were possible.  At the end of game 2 it shows you not only the word you missed but also how many sets you were able to unscramble before time ran out.  The only downfall I see is that it doesn’t save scores so there’s no running high score that you’re constantly striving to beat.  But I will totally forgive that small shortcoming because it comes with a nice hard plastic travel case!  You get to toss out the big box you brought home from the store and instead everything – including the instructions – packs easily into a box that’s a little larger than 2 in. x 2 in. x 4 in.  How nice is that?!  And because it’s not intrusive, it’s been on my desk for weeks now – I use it as a mini-break every now and then.  Love it!

Scrabble Flash Stats:
$30 at Target, Toys ‘R Us, Kmart, Amazon and many others
1 or more players, most games are for 1-player
~3 minutes per round so it’s up to you
Ages 8 and Up (although some words might be difficult for an 8 year old)

It’s officially the first day of fall.  I don’t have any idea where my summer went, but it’s indoor volleyball season again so I’m not too upset.  And for some unknown reason, I play volleyball with a lot of teachers and on numerous occasions I’ve suggested games to use in their classroom.  I try to pick games that I think are fun but have some element of learning in it – but really, I think any game that forces you to think ahead a turn or two can provide an extremely valuable life lesson, but I’m pretty sure that they need to validate their game-playing with a stronger argument than that.  My most recent educational find is A-BEE-C Match Game, invented by Matt Nuccio for Endless Games.

A-BEE-C is a dice and matching game for kids who are old enough to know not to swallow dice, but are still mastering letter recognition, reading and spelling.  There are 22 letter dice in the game and a bunch of cards with 3-letter words.  Make 2 teams, give them each half the dice and then lay three cards out.  One team uses the bee cup to roll their dice and using the letters rolled, they start to spell out the word/item on each card.  If they can spell the whole word they get to keep the card, if not the other team rolls their dice and tries to complete the word and capture the card.  Personally I like that it isn’t just about matching but it’s also got that “am I going to have a lucky roll?” feel to it.  First team to collect 7 cards wins.  To make it a little more challenging, use post-its to cover up the written word on the cards to make it more of a spelling game and less of a letter-recognition game.

Now, because this isn’t an article for Games for Educators (which I also write for), I asked Matt Nuccio how he came up with the game.  His PG-13ish answer:

“I was sitting in a bar downing Ketel drinks with [Brian Turtle, of Endless Games], when it crossed my mind that we might be able to make a game by capitalizing on this literacy thing that’s become a fad around world because of that Gutenberg dude…not the “Hey Mahoney” Police Academy Gutenberg, but the Johannes Gutenberg printing press German inventor guy. Anyway, the next thing I remember I woke up the next morning in an alley wearing a yellow and black striped shirt that read “just BEE you”, dice in my hand, and a cocktail napkin with the instructions written on it. I look over at Brain and he had poorly painted his flask to look like a bumble bee.”

Doubt it’s the truth – but I like it.  If inventing was only that easy!

A-BEE-C Match Game Stats:
~$14.99 at Creative Kidstuff, Boscovs and mom & pop shops
2 or more players, always played in 2 teams
Time needed to play really depends on the skills of the players
Ages 5 and Up