Game Reviews: Mensa Mind Games®, year 2007

Cover Up

• Replay Value (1-10): 4
• Fun Factor (1-10): 3
• Worth Buying (1-10): 7

This game is two-player 4-in-a-row on a 5x5 grid with some interesting restrictrictions that are physically enforced by the game pieces: you have 5 "small" pieces, 4 "medium" pieces, and 3 "large" pieces. Once a small piece is placed, it stays there for the rest of the game. A "medium" piece either covers up a small piece or is played in an empty space and it stays there for the rest of the game. A "large" pieces covers up anything, but on a future turn you can move a large piece (in which case whatever was undeerneath before is reveals and comes back into play.

The effect is that your basic tic-tac-toe just got a lot more flexibility -- with the great array of pieces available, some subtle cover-up and reveal strategies manifest.

Or do they? After playing a few games, I began to feel that it was never advantageous to play a "middle" piece if you had big pieces not in play, and it was never advantageous to play a "small" piece if you had middle pieces not in play. This is mostly because of the "uncoverable" property of the larger pieces -- since large pieces can't be covered, simply getting three-in-a-row in the middle 3x3 square with large pieces is usually sufficient to force a win. This means that the game seems like it would devolve into a sort of 3x3 tic-tac-toe with three movable pieces -- still an interesting game in its own right, but perhaps not nearly as interesting as the full potential of this set.

I do have the nagging feeling I may have missed some critical rule that gives the large pieces some disadvantage though, so perhaps you'd better check for yourself. The game components are pleasing to hold and satisfying to play, so it definitely won't be a waste of money.