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)

    • Gridiron Master

    (search on Board Game Geek)

    small pic of Gridiron Master

    • Replay Value (1-10): 8
    • Fun Factor (1-10): 7
    • Worth Buying (1-10): 6
    • MMG Popularity Rank (out of 54): 42nd

    Two games that no one else has ever thought of combining together: Chess and American Football. Pieces are placed on a 11x20 field, each 11-space row representing five yards. Each side places 11 men, where the front men move like chess pawns, and the other men move like the other chess pieces -- king, queen, bishops, rooks, knights. The offense starts with the ball on their quarterback (king); the goal is to get the ball at least two spaces forward (gain 10 yards) before the piece holding the ball gets captured (tackled). Once during the play, the quarterback can attempt to move (pass) the ball to a friendly piece in any direction; this will often be a piece with greater mobility.

    I wasn't optimistic about this game at first, but after a few plays I think that there's actually something here; the chess movement rules really manage to capture the feel of football, ironically enough. Rules for kickoffs and field goals and conversions are also well-thought out. However, there are some problems with the game that might be showstoppers for your group. First, the only thing distinguishing the pieces from each other is the color, and certain colors are annoyingly hard to distinguish -- and even if you know the difference, you'll still have a hard time remember which color is the "bishop" and which color is the "rook". Second, the rulebook has a lot of omissions. Some simply require you to know the rules of football, but one rule quesiton in particular ("Can I tackle any opposing piece behind my own line of scrimmage without penalty?") seemed like a critical rule that we couldn't find anywhere in the rules. The rulebook could also benefit heavily from having some sample plays, as well as having more organized references (it says things like "see above" and "as mentioned later" that we couldn't find the referent for). Finally, instead of just saying that both players should just play by the rules, the game has a bevy of "penalties" that have to be exercised -- I realize this makes the simulation more realistic, but it was something we didn't really want to deal with when just learning the game.

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    By Wei-Hwa Huang