Game Reviews: Mensa Mind Games®, year 2008

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 2008. (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
  • Be-Rhymed (5;6;5;24th)
  • Origin of Expressions (6;7;5;23rd)
  • Orijins (5;7;6;19th)
    Party Games: Artistic skill
  • StoryTellers (8;6;4;34th)
    Quiz Games
  • *Eye Know (7;8;8;5th)
  • It Was A Dark and Stormy Night (4;7;8;10th)
  • Man Laws and Woman Rules (4;6;3;18th)
  • MindTrap Geometrical Riddles, Genius Level (1;1;1;44th)
  • Think Outside of the Box (1;3;3;30th)
  • What's Yours Like? (9;8;8;3rd)
    "Roll Dice And Move" Games
  • Camp Board Game (3;6;3;29th)
    Number and Math Games
  • Numbers League (7;7;7;20th)
    Word and Language Games
  • *AmuseAmaze (8;8;8;6th)
  • *Jumbulaya (9;9;9;8th)
  • Professor Brainstorm Word Challenge Card Game (4;3;2;51st)
  • Tongue Tanglers (7;4;4;38th)
    Reflex and Reaction Games
  • I Spy Private Eye (5;4;5;48th)
  • On the Dot (5;6;8;46th)
    Strategy Card Games
  • Quatorze (4;6;3;32nd)
  • Shokoba (8;6;6;37th)
  • Sixteen (6;5;4;36th)
  • Zombie Fluxx (8;7;8;22nd)
    Family Strategy ("German") Games
  • Paradice (4;4;6;15th)
  • Stonehenge: An Anthology Board Game (10;8;7;1st)
  • *Tiki Topple (6;7;5;12th)
    Abstract Strategy Games -- Pure Abstract
  • Beyond Chess (10;5;6;14th)
  • Booya (4;4;5;17th)
  • Brainstonz (5;6;3;11th)
  • Chaos (7;5;6;4th)
  • Color Scheme (4;6;7;33rd)
  • Ducks in a Row (2;3;6;43rd)
  • Last Step Game (3;2;1;52nd)
  • Octego (8;8;8;21st)
  • *Pixel (7;6;8;7th)
  • Roundtable Games (1;2;1;50th)
    Abstract Strategy Games -- Luck or Hidden Information
  • Black Box+ (8;7;7;9th)
  • Dragons of Kir (7;7;6;28th)
  • Senet: The Ancient Tomb Treasures Game (6;5;6;25th)
  • Set Cubed (9;7;9;13th)
  • Tri-Cross (6;4;4;39th)
    War or Combat Games
  • Art of War (8;8;7;2nd)
  • Chaotic (5;5;5;54th)
  • Professor Brainstorm Word Challenge Card Game (4;3;2;51st)
  • Sen So Ninja Combat Board Game (5;7;5;53rd)
    One Player Games
  • Air Traffic Control Tower (4;5;7;40th)
  • Baffle! (3;4;5;31st)
  • Serpentiles (3;6;7;47th)
  • Spectrum Challenge (3;2;1;16th)
  • Top This! (3;8;7;45th)
    Sports Games
  • Gridiron Master (8;7;6;42nd)
  • Pizza Box Baseball (7;8;6;49th)
    Games With Original Themes
  • Aunt Millie's Millions (7;5;6;35th)
  • GiftTRAP (7;7;9;27th)
  • Reaction (2;2;6;26th)
  • Ruk-Shuk (4;6;7;41st)

    • Air Traffic Control Tower

    (search on Board Game Geek)

    small pic of Air Traffic Control Tower

    • Replay Value (1-10): 4
    • Fun Factor (1-10): 5
    • Worth Buying (1-10): 7
    • MMG Popularity Rank (out of 54): 40th

    You have to position 6 planes subject to certain constraints. The main constraint is that the planes come to you on eight transparent plastic pieces -- two dominoes and four L-triominoes, with the planes on specific 1x1 cells. The pieces cover a 4x4 area and cannot overlap, nor can they be turned over. The game comes with 40 puzzles in varying difficulty that constrain the planes in different ways; earlier puzzles give away position and orientation of the planes, while later puzzles ignore orientation and may even make position vague by providing "flight paths" that the planes must be on somewhere.

    Educational Insights, which is still a bit inexperienced in the puzzle field compared to Thinkfun, doesn't quite hit the correct difficulty mark in this set of puzzles. The puzzles are probably a bit on the difficult side here, with there being few techniques to solve the puzzle that aren't just trial and error. This is a game that I'd be happy to own (and in fact I purchased it last year, before it was available in the US), but people who aren't looking for a stronger challenge should probably pass on this one.

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    By Wei-Hwa Huang