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)

Blik-Blok

(search on Board Game Geek)

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

This puzzle game comes with some well-crafted wooden blocks, and a set of puzzle cards that each contain an isometric image of a structure and some blocks that you are supposed to build that structure with. The backs of the cards show the solution.

This is a pretty reasonable premise (and not even the only game this year to use that premise), but I sampled a few of the puzzle cards and attempting to solve the puzzles were very frustrating. Unfortunately, not in the good sort of frustrating that good puzzles tend to have -- one card had a block in the answer that was a different block in the puzzle; one structure was unstable unless you glued the pieces together, and one structure clearly had pieces that weren't listed at the bottom at all! Not to mention that the scale of the drawings were often inconsistent. I can just imaging trying to give this to the 10-year-old audience member -- either the child will be just as frustrated, or they'll get smart and learn to throw away all the puzzle cards and just use the wooden blocks as a construction toy.

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By Wei-Hwa Huang