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

Not far from my house there is a dive bar, with scary red lighting that hosts bingo on Monday nights.  It’s really not all that exciting; you win a brown paper lunch bag filled with random odd items.  I was lucky enough to win the first round Monday night and my winnings included some Cheez-It snacks, baby food, a bunny sucker and Chicklets.  By the end of the night our table had a skull candle, a bible card game and three colors of “fun dough.”  But before the bingo festivities began, we played quite a few rounds of the classic, but somehow not super well known, game Shut The Box.

Surprising to me, no one at my table had ever played Shut The Box before but by the end of the night everyone was addicted.  There are lots of variations of this game but traditionally it’s a box with tiles numbered 1-9 that you can flip forward and backward, which allows players to “check them off” as they use them.  The game is simple; you roll two standard dice and total them up.  Then you flip forward any available tile combination that equals the number you rolled.  So if you roll an 11 and it’s your first turn, you can flip forward a 9 and a 2 or a 1, 4 and 6.  It’s totally up to you, but once you flip forward a number you can’t use it again.  Your turn ends when you roll and you don’t have the right combination of tiles to equal your dice total.   You get your score for the round by totaling up the unused tiles.

There are a couple ways to score.  We played that whoever had the lowest number each round got one point.  You can then play until someone reaches a certain number of wins or until you run out of time.  Keeping a running tally of each player’s actual score is another way to play, just make sure you have a pencil and paper handy.  Play a certain number of rounds or until one player reaches a set number, and then the player with the lowest score is the winner.

Other versions of the game include boxes with tiles numbered 1-10 or 1-12.  There are also 2-player versions and 4-player versions.  Blue Orange games also has a game called Double Shutter that has two levels of tiles numbered 1-9 so you can flip two 5s if you roll a 10.  I also own a dice game named The Game of Chips by Jax that is essentially Shut The Box, with no box.  It uses poker chips numbered 1-10 and you flip them over as you use them.  This is a great low-priced travel alternative; it comes in a nice fabric pouch and can be purchased for ~$5.

Fun bit of trivia for you too, there was a TV show back in the mid-1970s called High Roller that was based on the game Shut The Box.  It was hosted by Alex Trebek and players answered “toss up” questions to gain control of the dice and the option of rolling or passing to their opponent.  It was on for a couple years and then again in the late 80s with Wink Martindale, but the new show wasn’t as successful.

Shut The Box stats:
$15 – $65+ at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Toys R Us,  some mass market retailers, specialty retailers
Shown at top: Melissa & Doug Shut The Box retails for ~$19-$25
Article preview: Front Porch Classics Shut the Box Signature Edition retails for ~$45-$53
1 or more players
Any amount of time
Ages 6 and up

Double Shutter stats:
~$19 at Amazon.com, Toys ‘R Us, Target, specialty retailers
1 or more players
Any amount of time
Ages 8 and up (it’s a bit more complex)

The Game of Chips stats:
~$5 Amazon.com, online game retailers, some specialty stores
1 or more players
Any amount of time, ~15 if you play by their rules
Ages 6 and up

A friend of mine was over recently and asked if I could recommend a card game that’s “like UNO, but not UNO, but is easy for non-game people to get, like UNO — oh and it also has to be fun for two players.”  Huh.  So we headed up to my hallway of games and I started pulling products out for him to look at.  He really wanted something simple, fun and that takes 2 seconds to learn.  Something “familiar.”

The game that really resounded with him was Ratuki by USAOPOLY.  This game has been through testing several times and has made it to my list of games to review, but it kept getting pushed down the list because it almost felt “too familiar” in my opinion.  All of the play testers really enjoyed playing the game, but EVERY ONE of them said “it feels like another game I’ve played with just cards.”  And they’re right, it does BUT it has one neat and unique feature that makes it different and those are the cards themselves.  Instead of all of the cards being numbered in the same fashion, they have five different ways of writing the numbers 1-5.  They use pips on a die, roman numerals, the word, a hand and the standard number.  (see the image above)  This little change makes all the difference – and makes the game worth owning.

Ratuki is all about speed and each round ends when a player runs out of cards.  During a round, there is the potential of three stacks in the center of the play area and everyone can play on those three stacks.  Using the deck of cards in front of them, players build on the center stacks by playing a number one above or below the top card on the stack.  The goal is to get play a five and capture the stack.  At the end of the round, players count up the cards they captured, subtract any cards of their own they were left with and that’s their score.  Play by rounds or play to a certain number – it’s up to you!

The game is fast and frenzied, and to reset for a new round is a snap because players have their own color cards.  My friend and I played one quick round of the game and he really enjoyed it.  Like the other game testers, he thought the game had a familiar “feeling,” which was exactly what he was looking for, a “comfort food” kind of game.

Also, if you don’t have time to read the directions – check out the nice graphic explanation at www.playratuki.com.

Ratuki Stats:
$10-$15 at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and Specialty Retailers
2-5 Players
3+ Minutes (totally depends on how many rounds you play or how many points you play up to)
Ages 7 and up

There are times that you just know fate has a hand in things.  Like I swear fate pushed the toy/game industry on me.  There’s no way I would have pursued it on my own, and yet due to some events beyond my control here I am writing game reviews while taking a break from game inventing!

From the sound of it, the game In A Pickle ended up being invented as a result from a little push by fate too.  As told by one of the inventors, Colleen McCarthy-Evans, this is how she and Joyce
Johnson came up with the idea for their Gamewright hit:

“After we met at an Adult Education Class on game design, taught by Keith Meyers and Michael Stern, Joyce and I began tossing some game ideas around together. We were intrigued by one concept in particular, that had players wearing big silly hats and balancing objects on them. We both had other careers then, and all our precious design time was devoted to developing this game, along with a space-themed board game. Meanwhile, Keith Meyers was on his way to Nuremberg, and offered to represent us with any games we were ready to pitch to game companies. When we showed him the wacky hat game prototype (which was going to be a challenge to fit in a suitcase) he said something polite like, “Uh, didn’t you mention you had an idea for a nice little card game, where players are making sets of objects that can fit inside each other?” We temporarily abandoned the game that wouldn’t fit in Keith’s suitcase, and began to work on the card game idea we had all but forgotten, and called it “A Penguin in the Closet.”  While it was not a ‘fit’ for the companies Keith showed it to in Germany, Joyce and I continued to develop and test the game, and eventually sent it off to Gamewright.”

It’s a great story and I love how it’s the little things in life – like a lack of space in a suitcase – that alter our directions!  Also check out the photo of an early prototype to the right.

As for the game, it’s all about what fits in what.  It’s like the suitcase story all over again – only more outlandish!  Could you fit a giraffe in a taxi?  What about money in a test tube?  Granted – you may not want to DO either of these, but that’s not the game.  It’s could you, if you wanted to?  So this leaves a large space for hilarity and also player interpretation, which may cause some problems.  A teacher friend of mine played it with her gifted high school freshman and it was like WWIII was going to start.  They had their laptops out trying to prove each other’s moves impossible; it was a “train wreck.” So a word of caution, In A Pickle can be a lot of fun – when you’re not playing with the über competitive set.

And a note: this year Joyce and Colleen have another Gamewright game coming out called Sounds Like a Plan, which is all about giving wacky advice.

In A Pickle Stats:
$10 – $15 at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Target, Toys ‘R Us and some specialty retailers
2-6 Players
15-25 Minutes
Ages 10 and up

You don’t really need to have a huge vocabulary to win – you just need to be quick.  You get 1 point for 3-4 letter words and more for longer words.  So if you come up with zillion 3-letter words, you can beat the person who found only a couple of crazy long ones.  And I must admit, my favorite part (besides winning) is when you get to the end of the round it’s really satisfying to see how many great words you have that no one else found.

I like Boggle so much that in the past I’ve been known to have paper, pencils and a mini dictionary crammed into the Boggle box so I could take it with me on trips.  But the bad thing was, the old Boggle game was designed so if you put the clear plastic cover on top of the dice tray, it wouldn’t fit in the box.  Annoying right?  Then Hasbro fixed that problem by giving the lid a new odd shape, but the dice didn’t shake as well in that one (and it felt kind of cheap) so I didn’t even bother purchasing it.  Well now they’ve completely redesigned the dice holder and it’s a very cool travel-friendly solution.  You twist it to shake the dice, then twist back to lock them in place.  So now, with the absence of a removable lid, you don’t have to worry about losing one of the dice.  And then to make it an all-in-one game, it’s got a timer built in.  Now all you have to do is hunt down some pencils and paper and you’re ready to roll!

Boggle’s been around since 1972 although it failed and was relaunched in 1976 after some revisions – including the addition of a shaker.  It was invented by Alan Turoff and as a fun bit of trivia the longest words that can be made are 17 letters long because the Q and U are on the same tile.  They are: inconsequentially, quadricentennials, and sesquicentennials.  Personally, I’ve never been able to get any of them.

Boggle Stats:
~ $15 at Wal-Mart, Target, Toys ‘R Us and pretty much everywhere that sells games
2 or More Players
~5 Minutes per round (including scoring) so it’s up to you
Ages 8 and up

Earlier this month I was at Richard Gottlieb’s “Future of the Industry” conference and someone brought up the issue of packaging.  Given that “green” is a trend; the absence of throwaway packaging is definitely an a-peel-ing part of Bananagrams.  (Couldn’t resist a good pun!)  While this game feels familiar to other crossword games like Pick Two, we all agreed that the adorable zippered banana sack and the hanging merchandiser helped make this item a standout.

The game itself?  I think it’s great!  (FYI – I really like quick word games.)  The only real negative is that it’s not heavy on the player interaction because you’re working on your own mini-crossword while everyone else is working on theirs.  The other players essentially set the pace of the game.  When they need a new piece, you have to draw one too.  If you need a piece, they select one as well and this continues until all the pieces are gone.

Keeping up is key in this game.  You also need to be flexible; quickly morphing your words to include an unfortunate letter tile is essential.  It’s not easy to squeeze an X or Z into an existing crossword but the faster you can, the less likely you will fall behind.  It’s also advantageous to have a couple open spots to create quick short words like “it” and “am” towards the end of the game.

Bananagrams was first introduced at London Toy Fair in 2006 and has swiftly become a big success.  It’s hard to ignore their booth at toy shows because it is filled with tons of fabric bananas so you just have to stop to find out what’s going on!  And apparently the deluge of bananas has worked because Bananagrams is now stocked in Target, Barnes and Noble and a wide variety of retailers.  So maybe the next time you stop at the store you’ll pick up some bananas – from the game aisle.

Bananagrams Stats:
~$15 at Target, Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, local Mom & Pop stores
2- Players
2-5 Minutes
Ages 5 and up

Regardless of how you pronounce the name Rummy-CUBE, Roomi-CUBE, Rummy –CUB, if you’ve played it you probably like it.

Rummikub has to be my favorite two-player game and I’ll admit it took me a long, LONG time to learn to play it.  Wait…let me rephrase, I got it pretty quickly once I read the directions but back when I was young my sister got a copy for Christmas we never bothered learning to play it.  Why?  It’s filled with numbers and it looked like math was involved and after summers and summers of math workbooks forced upon us from my math teacher mother there was NO WAY I was going to spend a minute of my free time with anything that looked like math was directly involved.

Silly me. It’s not a math a game – it’s a rummy game, hence the name.  But in my defense here, the rummy we played was called Shanghai so I really had no idea what rummy was at the time.

So when I finally got around to learning how to play Rummikub I couldn’t believe what I had been missing!  I am now the proud owner of 2 of the over 50 million copies that have been sold since Ephraim Hertzano started hand making copies back in the 1930s.

According to the Rummikub people it’s the bestselling tile game and the third best-selling family game in the world.  So then why am I even bothering to write a review?  Because if you are one of the people who hasn’t played it maybe because you fell into the “oh my God – it’s got numbers, there must be MATH involved” trap I fell into, I feel it is my duty to inform you otherwise.  You use the tiles you’re given (and the ones you draw) to make straights of the same color or groupings of  matching numbers (not of the same color).  But what makes it so cool is you can rearrange the tiles in the playing area to slide in your own tiles just as long as every tile still is apart of a straight or number grouping.  Oh my gosh, it sounds so easy!  And it is.

If you haven’t played, try it.  If you have and don’t like it, I’d keep that to yourself.  A big percentage of that 50 million people really like it and you don’t want to upset the mob.

Rummikub Stats:
~$11 and up at Target, Toys ‘R Us, Amazon.com and tons of other places
2-4 players, I think 2-3 is best – especially if you’re playing with “thinkers”
20-45 minutes (really depends on the players)
Ages 8 and up

I recently got asked for a suggestion for a “simple fun kids game” – you know, something for the very young soon-to-be-game lover.  There are a ton of these games out there that cover memory, matching, follow the path, counting, gross motor skills, etc.  And in my eyes the true test on whether these games are good or not is if the parents have fun (or at least a decent time) playing them.  As kids reach 7-10 years they’re fine playing most games on their own, but when they’re only 3-4 years an adult really has to play with them so unless you love stomping the youngins at Memory and Elefun, you need to find something that somewhat levels the playing field.

A game I like is Hisss.  It’s manufactured by Gamewright here in the USA, but was first seen in Germany (I believe).  Anyway, it’s a cute game about building multi-colored snakes.  On each turn, players randomly flip over cardboard tiles and either add it to an existing snake with a similar color section or start a totally new one if the color doesn’t match anywhere.  If you finish a snake by adding it’s head or tail you get to collect all of the tiles in that snake.  The player with the most tiles wins.

I really don’t have much to add in regards to commentary about this game.  It’s cute, simple, it’s easy to teach the youngsters, and it comes in a really nice, thick box.  (I hate games in cheap boxes.)

Hisss Stats:
~$11-$15 at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Toys ‘R Us
2-5 Players
~5-15 Minutes
Ages 4 and up (or a 3 year old who understands taking turns)

I find it only fitting that after returning from a nice vacation in France I review a game based on the gory French Revolution.  Nothing says fun like lobbing off the heads of tax collectors, wealthy priests, bad nuns, palace guards and a variety of evil nobles!  Vive la France!

In the card game Guillotine, players represent rival guillotine operators vying to behead the most prestigious nobles, clergy, civic leaders and famous historic characters like Robespierre in order to earn points and gain popularity with the bloodthirsty crowd.  Marie Antoinette and King Louis will fetch you 5 points whereas the lowly Royal Cartographer and Piss Boy are only worth 1 point.

During three rounds, which represent three days of beheadings, a line of characters head to the guillotine.  At the end of every turn you will lob off the head of the first person in line, but the line isn’t set in stone.  You have action cards that cause chaos and milling about.  Each turn you have the option to play one of your action cards and hopefully it will move a more valuable noble to the front of the line for you to collect.  Maybe the Count trips, a lady in waiting faints and is sent to the back of the line or the Duke insist on going next because he’s royalty.   Throughout the three “days” the action cards help you accumulate points and avoid pitfalls like beheading an innocent victim or the Hero of the People, which will cost you valuable points.

Guillotine provides a small lesson in French history and it also challenges you to spend some time planning out your future turns.  For example, if you manage to behead a whole slew of palace guards, their point value goes up.  And there are ways to end the day early, but you really have to pay attention to the points your opponents have racked up and it’s best to keep track of the nobles that didn’t get beheaded and instead ended up in the discard pile.  So it’s not a mindless game; it’s got some strategy mixed with a really funny topic.  (Not funny if you were there, but the drawings on the cards just crack me up!)

This game was invented by Paul Peterson and was released on Bastille Day in 1998  (*trivia question: do you know when Bastille Day is?) but it’s still pretty easy to find online or at small game stores – usually ones that focus on roll playing games since it’s manufactured by Wizards of the Coast which is probably best known for Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons. (*it’s July 14..a good day for baguettes, champagne and escargots!)

Guillotine Stats:
~$12-$15 at Amazon.com, FunAgainGames.com,  AreYouGame.com and Mom & Pop Roll Playing Stores
2-5 Players
~15-30 Minutes (Depending on the number of players)
Ages 12 and up

There’s just something addictive about throwing dice.  It’s the mixture of calculated odds and luck that makes you want to pick up a handful and get playing.  The best thing is there are lots of games beyond Yahtzee that are based around a handful – or cupful – of dice.  A good one is Easy Come, Easy Go.  It combines throwing four dice with collecting and stealing fantastic prize cards.  The game includes nine cards that can be earned (or stolen) by rolling a particular combination like “exactly 13” or “3 or less.”  And although rolling a “3 or less” sounds impossible when you’re playing with four dice, it’s not since the dice are numbered from 0-5 instead of the traditional 1-6.   What makes this game so great is that unlike Yahtzee where everyone is competing for a top score, you’re interacting with other players by stealing their cards so there’s quite a bit of competition and revenge.  It’s really a fun game to play with 3-4 other players.

Easy Come, Easy Go is the brainchild of the famous Reiner Knizia.  Haven’t heard of him?  Not many Americans outside of the game industry have.  He’s a very prolific game inventor who has licensed over 500 games so far.  So why then haven’t you heard of him?  Well, most of his titles are games that can only be found in Europe, but a couple have made their way to the United States via the Out of the Box game company which manufacturers Easy Come, Easy Go and also Reiner’s Fish Eat Fish and Tutankhamen.  Impressive, right?  I really want to know where he finds the time to invent so many games! (He probably doesn’t spend a chunk of time reviewing them – ha!)

Easy Come, Easy Go stats:

• ~$15, Amazon.com and online retailers
• 2-4 players (I think it’s best with 3-4)
• ~25-30 minutes (This maybe the biggest downfall of this game – it sometimes takes a little while for someone to win.)
• Ages 8 and up