Game Reviews: Mind Games, year 2006

These are Wei-Hwa Huang's personal reviews of games that might or might not have been submitted to the Mensa Mind Games event in 2006. (You'll have to go to that site to get the official list of submitted games, when they decide to post it.)

DISCLAIMER: The opinions, ratings, and reviews stated in this document and related webpages are the sole personal opinions of Wei-Hwa Huang and Wei-Hwa Huang alone. Wei-Hwa Huang does not speak for the more than 200 participants on the Mensa Mind Games selection panel. This is not an official site of Mensa Mind Games or Mensa Select, although the statements on which games are winners of Mensa Select are factually correct. Mensa Mind Games and Mensa Select are registered trademarks of American Mensa.

If you have any questions or concerns about my reviews and comments, please feel free to mail me.



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  • Baffle Gab (6;5;3)
  • Bonkers (6;6;4)
  • Byte (9;6;1)
  • Castle Keep (3;8;5)
  • Cephalopod (8;8;1)
  • Codebreaker (6;7;6)
  • Cosmic Cows (5;5;4)
  • Darter (8;8;7)
  • Da Vinci's Challenge Card Game (4;3;2)
  • Da Vinci Code Board Game (2;9;7)
  • Debate This! (7;3;3)
  • *Deflexion (7;4;8)
  • Diffusion (9;7;1)
  • Don't Quote Me - TIME for Kids Edition (9;6;5)
  • Dragon Chess (6;6;4)
  • 800: The Game of Verbal Perfection (7;5;4)
  • Eve's Quest (8;6;3)
  • Evolution (6;7;6)
  • Fikloo: The Game of Crazy Commands (5;2;1)
  • Gordian's Knot (2;5;10)
  • Heximania (6;4;8)
  • *Hive (9;7;8)
  • The Invention Game (6;6;7)
  • It-Dah-Gan (7;8;5)
  • JabberJot (7;6;4)
  • Jot (6;4;3)
  • *Keesdrow (9;7;9)
  • Kiss My Rules! (2;3;2)
  • Linq (6;8;6)
  • LonPos 101 Pyramid and Rectangle Game (4;6;9)
  • Match of the Penguins (3;5;3)
  • mental_floss: The Trivia Game (6;6;5)
  • Mind's I (4;4;3)
  • Nerdy Wordy (6;4;5)
  • Net Y (8;6;1)
  • Nymble (6;5;4)
  • Pacru 302 (7;6;6)
  • Pairs or Better (4;1;2)
  • *Pentago (8;8;7)
  • Pepper (9;7;5)
  • Pickomino (8;7;9)
  • Pick Two Deluxe (7;6;3)
  • Poison (7;8;5)
  • Portrayal (5;7;9)
  • Pünct (8;6;10)
  • Quelf (9;7;8)
  • Questionary (8;8;5)
  • Regatta (2;9;9)
  • Ringgz (5;3;2)
  • Sketchword (7;7;5)
  • Snatch (7;6;4)
  • Space Faces (4;7;6)
  • Summit (3;2;7)
  • Thing-A-Ma-Bots (4;6;5)
  • Top Speed (6;7;5)
  • Tricky Town (5;8;6)
  • Urban Legends the Game (1;2;1)
  • *Wits & Wagers (7;8;8)
  • Wordigy: A World of Words for Family Fun (3;1;1)
  • Wreck the Nation: the Game of Political Misbehavior (1;2;1)
  • You Must Be an Idiot! (9;9;9)
  • Zeus on the Loose (8;8;7)
  • Pickomino

    (search on Board Game Geek)

    small pic of Pickomino small pic of Pickomino in play small pic of Pickomino in play small pic of Pickomino in play

    • Replay Value (1-10): 8
    • Fun Factor (1-10): 7
    • Worth Buying (1-10): 9
    Knizia did write the book on dice games, and this is a pretty good one: it's a cute little press-your-luck game that actually gives the players quite a workout in mental probability calculations if they're trying to strategize. The game starts with 16 "pickominoes" (domino-shaped tiles) numbered from 21 to 36 and with point values from 1 to 4; at the end of the game, some tiles will be out of the game and the rest will be in score piles, one for each player. Players take turns, passing a set of 9 custom six-sided dice around -- they are like normal dice, except that the sixes have been replaced with "worms" (that have a numerical value of 5). On your turn, roll all the dice, then choose one of the numbers that you rolled and "lock" all the dice with that number on top. Then, you may take another roll by rerolling all the unlocked dice, after which you must then choose a different number that you rolled and lock all the dice with that number on "top". You bust (lose your turn, and the top pickomino on your stack) if there are no dice for you to lock because you've only rolled numbers that you've locked already. Before any re-roll, you may choose to stop only if you have locked at least one worm and can claim a pickomino -- either the top pickomino of another player's scoring stack (by exact count) or a public pickomino (not by exact count).

    Okay, I didn't really mean to type up almost all the rules there, but it just came out. It seems to me that 3 players is probably the ideal number for this game: offers enough tactical possibilities for a dice-heavy game while unlikely to leave a player feeling too out-of-the-game. The game has a surprising amount of interesting decisions, but hard-core strategy gamers are probably still going to be turned off by the fact that it's a bit too hard to direct your attacks. Players looking for a light filler, however, are going to find the standard game a bit too long, especially as it is so tempting to sit back and crunch numbers between rolls while everyone else just wishes you would move on. However, gamers in the middle, who are looking for something not too random but not too analytical, will find this game just right -- and I know there are a lot of us out there.


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    By Wei-Hwa Huang