Holiday Preview: Games, Part 1

In this delightful and deceptively simple logic puzzle game, players attempt to figure out the necessary moves that will permit to assemble back Simon, the scattered magician. An escalating level of difficulty allows children to start playing and progress at their own pace. Rather quickly, however, the game attains a level presenting a fun filled challenge to any puzzle loving adult.
Awards: Game of the Year 6/6 Consumer Guide of Canada

Do Tell is designed for parties, couples, friends and girls' getaways. By inspiring players to participate through words and actions, Do Tell acts as a natural icebreaker and a tool for connection and communication. Players never have to play the card they are given or reveal more than they are comfortable with. Do Tell aims to keep players curious, interested, engaged and rolling in the aisles. "We’re about expansion, diversity, compassion, understanding, coming out of our box, acceptance, love and laughter," Geoff LaPlace, president of Do Tell Enterprises, told TDmonthly.

Automobile™ carries you back to the birth of America’s car industry, when inventors, craftsmen, and entrepreneurs created a wild array of marvels and misfortunes. You step into this rough, romantic trade hoping to create a fortune by building and selling cars. Tapping the talents of men like Ford, Sloan, Kettering, Howard, Durant, and Chrysler, you balance quality versus quantity, mass production versus premium branding, and innovation versus distribution and aggressive sales. Lose your balance and you go bust. Strike the best balance, shift the right gears to best your rivals, and you’ll be rich. You might even win. So, pull up your sleeves and start making cars.

For 3-5 Players. Playing Time 90-120 minutes.

This playing card set consists of four timeless card games - Crazy Eights, Hearts, Old Maid and Go Fish - each designed with its own vibrant and vintage Ringling Brothers artwork.

Players assign a value to a ticket and collect the face value for each ticket sold. Holiday ticket themes include Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa and generic holiday/winter. The guest who has the winning ticket may be given a gift, while the money collected can go to a charity or to the host of the holiday party — or the guest who holds the winning ticket may be awarded the entire pot of money.

The Mayan Calendar is much more than a system to mark off the passage of time; it is a prophetic calendar that may help us understand the past and foresee the future. Some people believe it predicts the end of the world as December 2012, while others believe it forecasts the start of a new era. This game incorporates both views.The object of the game is to create a physical vehicle like a pyramid to focus and spread universal spiritual power. For this task players will need builders, materials, equipment and money. They must work together to build 11 spiritual centers around the planet to ward off destructive perils entering from many directions. "2012" includes a 13” x 18” board, four movers, two dice, a sheet of 55 die-cut pieces, eight player roles, six centers destroyed, 11 spiritual power markers and 12 destructive perils markers.

Each turn, one team flips over a category card and team members quickly brainstorm words that fit the category. The team agrees on a word before the time runs out and then pulls each letter in that word one lane closer to their side of the street. The first team to pull eight letters off the street wins. Word on the Street Junior is designed to encourage vocabulary development, creative thinking and teamwork, and is "great for all ages and all group sizes," Out of the Box VP of Marketing Leah Sugar told TDmonthly.
Awards: 2010 Mensa Select; 2010 Major Fun; 2010 Oppenheim Gold; 2010 Dr. Toy Best Vacation Product; 2010 Parent's Choice Silver
— Verlina Adema of What You Reading Now played Word on the Street Junior with her three children and enjoyed that the game required teamwork and brainstorming. As a homeschool mom, she appreciated that “This game incorporates visual, auditory and tactile learning styles so there is something for every child!”
— The Board Game Family described Word on the Street Junior as the perfect party game because “every time we play it, we can’t stop with just one play…But that’s just great because the second game is always louder, more energetic, and lasts longer for a lot more fun.”

WOKER is Word Poker. The cards represent letters and the goal is to make the highest scoring words based on the points associated with each letter. The cards are dealt as in three popular poker games. "It can be a family game, a party game or an educational tool," LCT Enterprises President Lisa C. Teore told TDmonthly.

Snoots Toots! A Kids Game of Empathy and Manners is a therapeutic board game from Dr. Poppy Moon’s Imagucation Creation Workshop. Kids will role-play their way through a variety of situations requiring manners and empathy skills. This game is designed to help kids learn skills that are critical to social and emotional development. "The use of role playing during the game makes it unique, as does fact that it can be used in a therapeutic, educational, or home setting," YouthLight Inc. Creative Director Amy Rule told TDmonthly. Awards: Dr. Toy 2010 Best Children's Vacation Products

This game for two or more players comes with a cup and 13 dice. Each player is a zombie, rolling a die for one of three outcomes: the brain icon that represents points, the footsteps icon that stands for a victim on the run and an opportunity to re-roll, or the shotgun blast icon that is detrimental to a player's undead health. Players score one point for each piece of gray matter and a strike for each shotgun blast. The first zombie to hit 13 points wins.

Word FRENZY is a fast-paced, word-forming card game that aims to foster spelling, vocabulary, word association and math skills. Playing with letter cards, players try to be the first to collect cards that spell a four-letter word relating to a category. "It's stealth education made fun!" Tame Tiger Marketing VP Steve Kam told TDmonthly.
Awards: 2009 Parents' Choice Approved Award; 2009 Dr. Toy's Best Picks; 2009 The National Parenting Center Seal of Approval; 2010 Family Review Center Gold Award; 2010 Family Review Center Editor's Choice Award

This two-to-four-player addition and subtraction game takes kids on a journey through Sum Swamp. Players make their way over the crocodile shortcut and through the endless loop by adding and subtracting the numbers rolled.

Booray! is a fast-paced New Orleans-themed poker game. The first player to obtain 400 Booray Bucks or to be the last player standing wins. This game consists of 52 custom-designed cards and 108 Booray Buck cards, and is designed for three to six players.

In this card game, when a player gets four-of-a-kind in his hand, it is just like the music stopping in a traditional round of musical chairs. The player grabs a chair and all other players react and grab for a chair, too. There is one less chair than the number of players in the round and the player without a chair is out.

Designed to allow practice and improvement for spelling skills, this 2- to 6-player game comes with a colorful game board, a tri-colored die, six bee playing pieces, 300 Buzzleword cards and 50 Buzzlebee cards. The spelling words are taken from actual school lists, and the adult version is ideal for family game night or play with friends. The game includes spelling words at three levels of difficulty.

The goal in this Word Golf course is simple – complete each hole with as few strokes as possible. Strokes are calculated by the number of words it takes to finish a hole. Players can work against the course or compete against their friends. Word Golf is portable and is designed to be a fun way to expand vocabulary and spelling skills. "Word Golf combines the challenges and fun of a word game with the excitement of a round of golf!" All the King's Games Owner Kevin Greenberg told TDmonthly.

Formerly called Patchwork, FlipOut is a fast-paced logic game for two to five players designed to build logic, memory and patterning skills in a fun setting. Players trade colorful, two-sided cards between plastic racks to create sets, or steal them from each other. Game play takes 20 to 30 minutes.

The Chat Pack contains 156 cards, each featuring a question meant to get people talking. This game is designed for dinner parties, family gatherings, car trips, and classroom activities.

The Adventures of Tommy the Tomato Playing Cards is an extension of the alphabet book for children. It is a memory, "go fish" and trivia game all in one. The games are designed to teach children literacy though the alphabet as well as the benefits of nutrition while being interactive.

The four island stores in this game have put in orders for fish of various kinds. Players represent The Island Fishing Co-op, working together to fill these store orders and return home safely before the stormy season makes fishing and deliveries too dangerous to continue. Players get "paid" for their work and share the earnings. The game is designed for two to four players and includes a 12" x 12" board, four fishing boats, four boat movers, 12 assorted fish, four sharks, four good weathers, 12 storms,16 assorted baits, a home supply depot and instructions.

Containing 120 cards, this set is a foundation for anyone looking to play House Martell in the Living Card Game environment. Infamous Martell characters like Prince Doran and Princess Arianne Martell, Areo Hotah, Ser Arys Oakheart, Darkstar, the Daynes of Sunspear, and the Red Viper are featured, along with the staple building block cards necessary to make the Martells a competitive option. This is not a stand-alone game; an A Game of Thrones: The Card Game Core Set is required to play. Launch date: Dec. 14, 2009.

A party game where each player is given a card with a unique hand symbol they must watch out for. Everyone starts the beat and if an opponent makes another's symbol instead of the clap in the beat, that person must respond with their symbol and then one of another player. The game teaches rhythm, strengthens observation and encourages social interaction. For four to twelve players. Launch date: 2010.

It's a great day to be a dog in the park. The sun is shining, there are no cats to be seen... and the tantalizing whiff of a big, crunchy bone can be smelled from somewhere nearby. But shuffling around the patches of turf to dig it up is going to require creativity and cleverness.
Awards: Triple Star Canadian Toy Testing Council 6/6 Consumer Guide of Canada

In this game, Aliens are on the loose and it’s up to the players to capture them. Everybody’s got aliens, but there are only two capture markers. Catch as many aliens as possible before the next player grabs the capture marker. The first to capture all of their aliens wins. For two to 10 players. Launch date: 2010.

Count Your Blessings is the Chicken Soup for the Soul-inspired game with an attitude for gratitude. Players try to be the first to flip their four tokens from "Stressed to Blessed", "Tired to Inspired", "Frazzled to  Dazzled", and "Mad to Glad" simply by looking on the positive side of life. The package includes: one sun spinner board, 215 game cards, 24 tokens, six heads or tails coins, one pair "Look on the Brightside" glasses, and instruction booklet. Launch date: 2010.

Old School FIKI Football is a tabletop football game with a genuine leather triangle "football." It includes a goalpost and 5" x 7" replica football field. "FIKI Football is patented and the only genuine leather tabletop football game on the market," Richard M. Crasnick, president of FIKI SPORTS, told TDmonthly.

This game for two to six players pairs the concept of four suits with the letters of the alphabet, challenging each player to create one or more words using all of his cards. A hand can require from 1 to 10 minutes.

Cards are played in sequence, progressing up or down. A player sets down cards in number order. A yellow card means to take a chip out of the Golden Gate. But then, there's some skill involved: Can a player place them at the right times to get the best chips? Or will the opportunity pass? Getting stuck with red cards means a loss of chips. "Golden Gate is an exciting card game in which you combine a little bit of luck with the right plays to start piling up your points. It’s a fast, friendly showdown for the gold with the fine craftsmanship and colorful designs you’ve come to expect from Blue Orange Games," Bert Devort, Sales Department, Blue Orange Games, told TDmonthly. Launch date: February 14, 2010.