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.

Sort By Name
Sort By Ranking
Sort By Category

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)

Slap Wacky!

(search on Board Game Geek)

Replay Value (1-10): 5
Fun Factor (1-10): 3
Worth Buying (1-10): 2

This is a pretty simple simultaneous play game. Each player holds a section of the deck face down, and follows the simple rules of "draw a card, look at it, then play or discard it." Cards are played into a central play area, creating symmetric shapes. When a symmetric shape is created, the first player to slap the shape takes the shape and collects those cards for points. To make things a bit more spicy, there are wild cards that can replace any card, and "X" cards that have to be canceled by the correct card to complete the shape.

The special cards, however, tend to slow the fast-paced nature of the game down, because players have a strong tendency to misplay them. The first game I played, I don't anyone at the table was playing with the correct rules, and when we did try to make everyone play with the correct rules, a lot of the hectic wacky nature of the game seemed to disappear. Overall, a speed game this simple really needs to have simpler rules to really be enjoyable, I think.

Return to Introduction

Other MMG Reviews

By Wei-Hwa Huang