Game Reviews: Mensa Mind Games®, year 2007

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 2007. (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 100 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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Party Games: Word-based

Head1liners (5;6;6)

*Hit or Miss (8;8;9)

Rhyme N Tyme (8;5;6)

Take Your Best Shot (8;6;10)
Party Games: Artistic skill

Luck of the Draw (4;8;4)
Party Games: A Variety of Tasks
Quiz Games

Cineplexity (8;9;6)

NAQ (8;10;7)

Numaro (4;6;4)

Take A Wild Guess (3;3;1)
"Roll Dice And Move" Games

Postcards from North America (2;7;2)

*Skullduggery (5;7;5)
Number and Math Games

Equalz (5;7;4)

Space TiVitz (5;5;7)
Word and Language Games

Bananagrams (7;9;8)

disorder (9;9;7)

Lim (Letter Cube Cards) (4;5;6)

Merriam-Webster's Word Sweep! (9;7;7)

Sneak A Peek (The Crossword Game) (6;3;4)

You've Been Sentenced! (5;6;5)

Zotto (4;5;3)
Reflex and Reaction Games

Poppo! (3;3;7)

Slap Wacky! (5;3;2)

Three of a Crime (7;8;8)

Toppo (9;9;8)
Dexterity Games

Kippit (8;8;9)

Shakedown (6;5;6)
Strategy Card Games

Abridged (7;9;5)

Ka-Ching! (9;9;10)

Margin for Error (8;9;5)
Strategy Dice Games
Family Strategy ("German") Games

*Gheos (8;9;9)

Aussie Rules Super Subsistence Farmer (10;9;2)

Medici vs. Strossi (7;8;8)

Treasure Fleet (8;8;6)
Abstract Strategy Games -- Pure Abstract

Babylon (5;4;4)

Cover Up (4;3;7)

Mix-Up (8;7;9)

Newton's Apples (3;4;5)

Project Kells - Tara (6;6;10)

Skybridge (3;4;7)

Spin & Trap (2;2;7)
Abstract Strategy Games -- Luck or Hidden Information

Bendomino (6;5;8)

Cromlet (6;8;6)

*Gemlok (7;7;8)

Mimic (3;5;2)

Quirky (4;4;6)

*Qwirkle (8;9;10)

24/7 the Game (7;7;10)
War or Combat Games

HeroCard: Cyberspace (5;7;6)

HeroCard: Rise of the Shogun (5;7;5)
One Player Games

Aqube (1;1;3)

Blik-Blok (1;3;1)

Cliko (6;2;5)

Cover Your Tracks (5;1;6)

Logic Links (2;1;1)

Meta-Forms (6;2;5)

Noodlers (3;1;2)

Zoologic (7;2;4)
Games With Original Themes

Kingka (2;2;6)

Yamodo! (1;1;3)

Ka-Ching!

(search on Board Game Geek)

Replay Value (1-10): 9
Fun Factor (1-10): 9
Worth Buying (1-10): 10

This is a cute two-player game where you and your opponent take turns either picking cards from a large pool or cashing in two previously-picked cards of the same suit for points. Cards have a value of 2 to 6, and when you cash in two cards, you get money equal to their product. This means that as a basic strategy you want to put big value cards together: 2x4+2x5 is 18, while 2x2+4x5 is 24. There's a tricky zugzwang property where you and your opponent are trying to arrange things so that you get the higher-numbered cards that match your colors, while stopping your opponent from doing the exact same thing.

Despite the simplicity of the rules, the game actually works rather well. The randomness of the opening deal mean that no two games are likely to be the same, but once the opening deal is done all information is public, so it is essentially a pure-strategy game that is tricky to analyze. A cute little gem of a game.

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By Wei-Hwa Huang