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)

    • Spectrum Challenge

    (search on Board Game Geek)

    small pic of Spectrum Challenge

    • Replay Value (1-10): 3
    • Fun Factor (1-10): 2
    • Worth Buying (1-10): 1
    • MMG Popularity Rank (out of 54): 16th

    The new innovation in this yet-another-attempt-to-cash-in-on-sudoku craze is that the numbers are replaced with colors! In the form of colored "gems" (aka glass stones). The game comes with a large assortment of sudoku puzzles in the new format, as well as rules for a few games, which pretty much involve players taking turns putting stones on the board obeying standard sudoku rules.

    Games like this make me wonder -- do the designers of these Sudoku games ever actually try to play them? Or is it somehow so important to cash in on the Sudoku craze that playtesting be darned, as long as people buy the game through advertising? In any case, among the field of all those Sudoku "games" out there that try to make Sudoku into something other than what it is (namely a solitaire paper-and-pencil puzzle), this game isn't particularly bad -- but then again, they're all particularly bad when compared to the rest of the games out there.

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    By Wei-Hwa Huang