November 2010 Notable Toys — Family Games

The PirateTalk Conversation Card deck features topics on pirate lore and legend, as well as facts about real-life pirates and how they lived life on the high seas. PirateTalk cards aim to fire up the imagination with topics like sunken treasure, swashbucklers in popular movies and books, and "Talk Like a Pirate Day." Each of the 52 colorfully illustrated cards presents facts with intriguing questions designed to get everyone talking about their own ideas and experiences.

Feeling Sweet Bingo is a unique twist on the game of Bingo. Sweet-themed characters express a broad range of vividly illustrated feelings and emotions. The game includes 50 tiles, eight Bingo cards, and 100 Bingo chips.

The Feeling Sweet Matching Game brings to life a whole sweet shop of feelings. Each yummy treat shows an expressive feeling to be matched. 50 matching pairs of sweet tiles are included.

The Feelings in Bloom Matching Game brings a whole garden of feelings to life. Each expressive flower wears a different feeling on its face to be matched.

This game features a whole garden full of vividly illustrated flower characters that express a wide range of feelings and emotions, and is designed to be a unique twist on the game of Bingo.

Feelings in the Wild Bingo is a colorful Bright Spots game for the animal lover. The animated characters express a wide variety of emotions that can add new dimensions to playing the game.
Awards: Dr. Toy 100 Best Children's Products - 2010

The Feelings in the Wild Matching Game brings to life a vividly illustrated cast of animal characters, each with a different feeling to match. The game is designed to let kids have fun with feelings while they bring together matching animal pairs from all over the world. It includes 50 matching pairs of tiles.

In Wacky Wacky West, players are townfolk who place track tiles, street tiles, and river tiles hoping to destroy their rivals’ buildings. Every time someone tries to build over a precious outhouse, the town votes. Players try to enlist their supporters, represented by cards, to vote with them to stop or encourage the play of certain tiles in order to save some of their buildings or take out those of their opponents. This two to four player game can be completed in about 45 minutes. The game contains a game board, four work gang figures, six goal cards, 32 vote cards, 60 tiles and rules.

The 9 Square Shooters dice are printed with a full deck of 52 cards plus 2 jokers – you can use them to play almost any card game!  The patent-pending dice are designed so you can roll hands for rummy, poker, twenty-one and many more games. Includes Dice, Playing cards, Game cards, Scorekeeping chips, Dice cup and Instructions.

This fairy-themed Think-ets collection includes an assortment of 15 miniature trinkets that can be used to tell stories, and play memory and strategy games. Think-ets is designed to be an ideal travel game for use in restaurants, waiting rooms, poolsides or anywhere on the go.

This question and answer game comes with two special features. First, the questions are practical, not trivial, for hours of conversation about topics such as child-rearing, gardening, everyday law, travel, health, cooking, car and home care and more. Second, Untrivia is cooperative. Players share ideas, discuss the possible answers, and decide on the best choice. A snakes and ladders type of board provides some pitfalls and surprises.

In this game, players are CEOs in control of their own power grids on the continent. Each is responsible for bringing and maintaining full electrical service to a Populated Center. There are bonus revenues and other perks for fully servicing one’s own area. However, each grid is interdependent with other grids, so CEOs must work together for the survival of the Continental Power System.

In this game, players need to bring in enough stories, photos, cartoons and advertising contracts to meet the printing costs and staff payroll of a newspaper. If they can’t meet these combined costs, then it is a case of "Stop the Presses." Each player takes on a different staff role to maintain the paper's publication. The game includes a 17" x 17" board, a reporter mover, a press time marker, one die, 55 cards consisting of 10 staff, two cartoons, one comic page, six photos, six issues, 12 ad contracts, 18 assorted stories and rules.

In this game, players act as research and development teams trying to redesign North America's social-economic system before it's too late. The focus is on energy and resources, but many fields are explored. Designed for thinking friends and for high school and college classes, the game aims to provoke discussion among mature, thinking people.

This game is a Kafkaesque metaphor about seekers trying to escape the political, religious, economic and other illusions that entrap them, preventing freedom of mind and spirit. Captain K sails to a dark but enticing land to look for crew to help cross the dangerous seas to Freedom Island. Constant patrols make it difficult for the crew to gather documents and gear needed to make a boarding at any dock. Players are the crew, seekers after freedom, helping each other round up credentials which entitle them to board the Good Ship Freedom and avoid those feverish patrols, who never tire of vying for their very being.

In this game players are private investigators, all working for Eagle Eye Agency, gathering clues in a big city to solve the mysteries. They shadow suspects, do legwork and gradually work up a case. Everyone plays a key part. It's not who wins, but rather whether players can all solve the mystery. Thirty-nine original cases are provided. When these cases are exhausted, the game can be extended with the Mystery Maker Kit included to create more cases.

In this game, the cruise ship is sinking fast, and players manage to launch a lifeboat. They form a rescue team, working together to save themselves and as many of the survivors as they can. There are many variations on how the game can end. S.O.S. includes a 17" x 22.5" board, special dice, a lifeboat, charts (captain's marine forecasts, food supply, fuel/speed) and diecut cards (drifting currents, food marker, fuel marker, sharks, rocks, food and fuel packets, an assortment of survivors, rules for regular and nasty versions).

This expansion pack for the wordsearch game Wordquest Goliath comes with 20 additional topics to choose from on 10 circle board cards with topics on the front and back side.

This strategy game is about operating Coast Guard Ice Breakers in the Arctic. Players' job is to open up frozen waterways for freighters, supply ships, tankers and military craft. They succeed if they get all 12 ships to their respective destinations before the ice becomes too thick and widespread.
Awards: 2003 Dr. Toy Best Game

Players are visitors from outer space whose scout craft has crashed on an island. Their mission is to search the island, the shore, the sea, nearby forests and even mountains for the elements to repair their craft, before the mothership comes to pick up the scout craft. On Earth, players meet UTOCs (Ugly Things Out of Control) and use powers to deal with them. However, the aliens' world is without violence and is filled with people so deeply peaceful that they cannot harm anyone. If a player uses a special power in a violent way, his or her Being disintegrates. The game includes a 13" x 18" board, movers, a traveler chart, travel cards and dice.

Players use the detective card game to put the jigsaw together, and then have a picture mystery case to solve. Each case has 40 Clues and measures 8” x 14.” The sealed envelope contains the solutions, and a secret coded message. Rules are included for a group co-op game for 12 to 36 players, using all four cases together.

In this game, players are a team of private detectives solving such cases as theft, smuggling and blackmail. They move around a city looking for clues, while trying to avoid locked doors, guard dogs, getting tied up, secret codes, even mobsters — and using disguises, fast moves, a special tool kit, and their quick wits to get out of tight corners. If players pool strategies, use some intuition and help each other out of tough spots, they can get their client out of trouble. Investigators is a quick-moving game with lots of opportunity for sharing, consultation and decision making. It includes a 13" x 18" board, cue cards, "big bucks," a solution envelope, dice and movers.
Awards: 1989 Canadian Toy Testing, Top Rating

In this game, players try to gather the ingredients to fill various shopping lists. They must do this before the ingredients spoil and go to the green bins and the recycle truck, and are carted off to the Recycle Compost Depot. The set includes a game board, 10 spoiled stuff signs, 20 ingredients, six shopping lists, a shopping cart, a recycle truck and rules.

Spies & Alibis is a cooperative mystery game in which players act as a team of special unit detectives working together to discover which of the suspects has taken the government’s top secrets. Players must solve the case before the Spies board the Airplane and get away. The game includes a full color 12” x 12”board, 10 time flies cards, 22 eye witness cards, a government building card and three pairs of handcuffs for making arrests.