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)

    • Babylon

    (search on Board Game Geek)

    (small images)
    huge pic of Babylon

    • Replay Value (1-10): 5
    • Fun Factor (1-10): 4
    • Worth Buying (1-10): 4

    Simplest strategy game ever, the box says, and it is probably true. The game comes with 12 cute little stackable faux cuneiform tablets in four colors, and unfortunately I can't tell you much more than that because then you could probably just play the game with poker chips and then the publisher would be angry at me for making them lose money.

    If you are familiar with combinatorial game theory, I can tell you that this is a two-player perfect-information impartial game that I am absolutely confident would fall to some basic Sprague-Grundy analysis. On the other hand, if you are not familiar with combinatorial game theory, you'll probably find this a pretty fun game to spend a few minutes on.

    Addendum: I just wrote a program that solved the game completely. It took about 40 minutes to write. The game is a second-player win.

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    By Wei-Hwa Huang