Bright Idea Games

Bright Idea Games are designed for kids. They're maybe not complex enough for us grownups. But if the kids are having fun, well, then, they're fun enough. Way more than Chutes and Ladders, let me tell you. Maya (7) and I (63) have played two of these games - Gopher It and Catch the Match - enough times for them to become a cherished part of our personal play stash. Both games are made of cards that are thick enough to withstand bouts of childlike glee. Both are different enough to be suitable for different moods. Gopher It is a game of luck and risk. Catch the Match a game of visual perception.

Of these two, the technology of Catch the Match is maybe the more impressive. There are 15 large, thick cards. On each card, there are 15 images. Given any pair of cards, there are exactly two images that match. Neat, huh. Exactly two. The idea of the game, be the first to spot the match. Easy to understand. Simple enough for a 7-year-old. And me, too. Maya and I have tied twice. A great game for training eye an mind. What else can I say?

Gopher It reminded me a little of Sid Sackson's Can't Stop. You mish up all the satisfyingly thick cards, face down. There are three suits: carrots, nuts and apples. You can pick up to three cards, but if you pick two of the same kind of card in a row, you lose your turn. So you can't be too greedy. But you can't be too conservative either. As a result, there's just enough tension to keep everyone in play, without taking winning too seriously. There's some counting and adding, but the real skill is all about understanding risk.

Baggyball

This is a "Bubblebag." It is called a Bubblebag because it is made of a plastic grocery bag wrapped around a chunk of bubble wrap. Note, if you will, that there is no tape being used to keep everything together. Note again how the cunning use of the bag handles stretched over the bubble-wrap-containing bag makes possible the construction of a tight and durable ball cover. Yes, the ball could be rounder. However, after several many hours of deft experimentation, it became clear that bubblewrap resists being made into a round ball. And as the bubble wrap goes, so goes the Bubblebag.

Enough about the Bubblebag, except, perhaps, to note how wonderfully hit-uppable it is. Different than a balloon or beachball. Light, yet hefty. Clearly not round. Possessing properties. One could imagine oneself hitting the ball up in the air repeatedly, as if one were engaging in a sort of anti-dribble, bouncing up, where one would normally bounce down. This, it turns out, to be almost all the inspiration required to lead one inexorably towards the new, and profoundly playworthy Junkyard Sport of Baggyball.

Here you see an image of a Bubbleball adjacent to a plastic shopping bag (this one donated by the very same Staples that sponsors that homage to the competitive spirit known locally as Staples Center. Note the relative size. It is somewhat central to the playability of the game that the bag is larger than the Bubbleball. Two such bags and one Bubbleball make up all the equipment you need to play Baggyball.

Baggyball, you see, is played very much like basketball, except for the following distinctions:

1. One dribbles up instead of down
2. The baskets are bags, and are held by players, who position themselves anywhere they want throughout the court (because it's too boring to pretend to be an immobile basket, and it makes the game a lot more fun and strategically complex if the baskets can run around). This makes the basket actually a member of your team. And a key member, at that.
3. The game can be played anywhere, on sand or grass, or even a basketball court.

I first played this with a bunch of amazing elementary school kids who volunteered to help me out at a demo session for the AAHPERD(American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance) conference held last month in Chicago. Once I demonstrated the basic dribble technique and the mobile bag-basket concept, they figured out everything else. And they didn't want to stop playing. And they laughed a lot.

It is possible that it is also legal to kick the ball.

Knock Out - a lesson in logic and probability

Knock Out is the second game from the Muggins people to get a Major Fun award. Again, it's made for durability and ease of use - a wooden board, marbles, plastic trays for holding the marbles - and elegantly conceived. And yes, like Muggins, the first "educational game" to receive a Major Fun award, it's value, at least for adults, lies in the learning opportunities the game provides. And, even more importantly, it's fun.

Numbers, from 1-18, are spaced clockwise around the board. A hole above and below each number can be filled in by marbles. Throwing three dice, the object is to use the break up the combined number to capture as many of the numbers as possible. A number can only be captured when both holes are occupied by the same color marble. As you play the game, you get a vivid lesson in probability. The lower numbers are always the first to go - and the most hotly contested. It's a remarkable opportunity to be explore the machinery and mystery of math.

Variations allow for more sophisticated play. There's a "Place Value" level in which the dice can be arranged so the first die represents tens, the second units and the third can be added or subtracted from the total, which is then broken down to its components. For example, a 6, 5 and 3 are rolled. The 6 and 5 become 65. The 3 can be added or subtracted to make 62 or 68. 68 can then be broken down to a 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 12, 15 and 17.

Above all, it's fun enough to want to play again and again, especially for school-age children. There's a lot to learn about chance and numbers. Enough to keep them happily playing and exploring number properties for hours. Major Fun. For kids.

Gobblet, Jr. - a reasoning game you can play with your kids

It was more than two years ago when a game called "Gobblet" became the first strategy game to get a Major FUN Award. Today, it's Gobblet, Jr., a simpler version of Gobblet where the goal is to get three-, instead of four-in-a-row.

What makes the game so attractive is: 1) it's based on tic-tac-toe - so, if your kids know tic-tac-toe, they'll be able to understand how to play, pretty much immediately; and 2) it's way more interesting than tic-tac-toe. Way. Each player gets two sets of nesting cylinders. Players take turns placing any of their cylinders down anywhere on the board. And yes, if you have a larger cylinder, you can even put it on top of your opponent's cylinder. Which, you probably already see, has enough strategic implications to make playing the game utterly fascinating. OK. Maybe not as utterly as Gobblet, uh, Sr., where you have three sets of nesting cylinders and are playing on a 4x4 board on an even more woody box, but definitely utterly enough.

Though it's called "Gobblet, Jr," it's not getting a "Kids" award, or even a "Family" award, but a full-fledged, adult-worthy, Thinking games award, just like its bigger brother.

See, at the last Games Tasting, I didn't tell anyone about the other Gobblet. I showed them Gobblet, Jr., and I said, look, even though it looks like a kids' game, play around with it as if it were a big person's game, deserving of the best of your very adult selves. And they did. And it was. Even in its simpler, 3x3 version. A game to be taken most maturely. Even if kids like it, too.

Meaning that this is a game that exercises reasoning and logical skills that not only your kids will enjoy, but that you'll enjoy, too. An opportunity for you to play together, learn together, think together.