Games and Puzzles

Dobble is a modern-day classic game of observation. Each card in the tin is unique and has 8 symbolss on it.  However one of these, but only one, symbols is shared with each of other cards.  You have to be the first to spot that shared symbol .  It should be easy but it's not.

Suitable for 6 years+  (younger children might stuggle with some of the symbols so try Kids Dobble which has fewer but more recognisable symbols)

Outfoxed is an excellent cooperative deduction game.  Someone has stolen Mrs Plumpert's prize pie and you and the other players have to work out which fox is the guilty one.   At each roll of dice, you get a chance of finding a clue or revealing a suspect.  If you are unlucky or you make a mistake, the fox moves three steps closer to getting away.

Children like this game because it's fun.  Parents like it because it also encourages the children's logic and memory skills.

Each game takes about twenty minutes.

Age suitability: 5 +

2-4 players

Here is an excellent review on Youtube from Tom Vasel of the Dice Tower:

Single person brain game for children 6 years old and upwards.

There are sixty challenges, easy ones at the beginning and getting harder and harder.  Position the four penguins as indicated on the challenge and then try and fit in the ice floes around them. There may only be four ice floes but it's really quite tricky.

The board is about 15cm across and comes with a lid, making it a great travel game.

SG431

Magnetic travel game in a book format, held closed with a popper.

Choose one of the 48 challenges and then work out where to put the magnetic pieces.

Create a path for the dwarf to reach the gold in the various caves using the ladder pieces.

Age Suitability: 7+ years old.

This is one of the more challenging of the travel games.

SGT280

Jump'In XXL

Single person brain teaser game for children age 7 and upwards (and shop-keepers when it's quiet in the shop).

Get the rabbits back safely to their burrows by jumping over the mushrooms and foxes.

This version is the extra, extra large one with four rabbits and 100 challenges.  The board is about 28 cm across and the pieces, the rabbits, mushrooms and foxes are good and solid.  Altogether, very visually appealing and horrendously brain-testing.

The standard version, with three rabbits and sixty challenges, comes on a board about 15cm across with a lid, so makes a great travel game.

My favourite of all the excellent Smart Games.

SG421

Introduce the delights of Scrabble to younger children.

For children starting to spell, one side of the board has pictures and clues for children to guess words that are already on the board (for example f--h paired with a picture of a fish).

On the other side of the board, older children can play a more conventional game of Scrabble, making up their own words but with bigger tiles and simpler scoring.

Contains : Double-sided board, 84 word tiles, 30 counters for scoring, and instructions.

2 - 4 players.

Age suitability: 6+

Here is a video from youtube with a very American voiceover:

The smartest version of Scrabble that we stock.

Comes with a 1950's graphics, wooden tiles and wooden racks, all in a brushed aluminium tin.

2 - 4 players

Age suitability: 10 +

This is the travel version of Scrabble.  It comes in a much smaller box (19 x 19 cm) and the board has a plastic grid on it to stop the tiles sliding around.

2 - 4 players

Age suitability: 8 +

Rummikub is a tile game.  The tiles are numbered 1 to 13 in four colours. Each player starts with fourteen tiles and tries to discard them in sets, three or more of the same number but in different colours, or runs, three or more consecutive numbers in the same colour.   The first to clear his tiles is the winner.

Rummikub was invented in Romania 70 years ago by Ephraim Hertzano following the Romanian government's decision to ban card games.  It works on a similar principle to a central European card game called Vatikan, played with two packs of cards, with tiles substituting for cards.  Initially Mr Hertzano made every game himself, carefully cutting and painting each tile by hand in his little workshop.  Word spread about the game and it slowly began to be exported.  In 1977, it became one of the best-selling games in America.  In 1980 it won Game of the Year in Germany and other awards in Holland and Poland in subsequent years.  It is now exported to more than 50 countries from a high-tech factory in Israel still run by the Hertzano family.

2 - 4 players.

Age suitability: 7 - Adult

Here is an excellent youtube video explaining how to play:

Race through the maze to recover your treasure.  The only snag is that the walls keep moving. as your competitors try to retrieve theirs.  At the start of each go, you move one section of the board one space which may help or hinder.

A game that first came out over thirty years ago and since then has given rise to over 60 different derivatives.

Each game takes 20 - 30 minutes.

2-4 players

Age suitability: 8 - adult.

 

In this game, you try to trap the hexbug that is scuttling around the board into your trap.  Hexbugs are little battery-powered robots that are designed to look and move (vaguely) like cockroaches.  The board is set up like a maze with a trap in each corner.  The walls of the maze are made up of knives, forks and spoons.

So you set the hexbug going and then take it in turns to roll the dice.  The dice will tell you which type of wall piece (knife, fork, spoon or any piece) you can turn to direct the hexbug into your trap.  The other players though in their turn will want to turn it around so that it heads towards their trap.  Meanwhile the hexbug may have other ideas.

2-4 players

Age suitability: 6 +

Colt Express is a fun board game in which you are one of a group of bandits trying to rob a train.  The board itself is a 3D train that you assemble out of cardboard before you play the game the first time. 

Each round of the game has two stages.  In the first stage, the Schemin' Phase, the players try to plan how their character will move around the train in the second stage and what it will do as it moves. So players take it in turn to lay down an activity card.  You will decide, for example, whether it moves from carriage to carriage, climbs onto the roof, robs the passengers, shoots or punches another character or moves the sheriff.  After everyone has laid down there four cards, the second stage, the Stealin' Phase, begins.  The bandits are moved around the train in the way that the cards instruct.  Some bandits may pick up the money and gems, others may be unlucky and meet the sheriff.

The game lasts for 5 rounds which should take about 40 minutes.

2-6 players (better and more chaotic with 4+)

Age suitability: 10+

Bigjig's version of the classic Mastermind game.  Ten rows to solve the problem.  Made of wood and the pegs are less fiddly than the plastic ones.

18.5 x 28 cm

Age suitability: 3 years +  (clever kid)

BJ694

28 chunky wooden dominoes in a sturdy wooden box with a sliding lid.

Storage box measures about 33 x 20 x 2.5 cm

Age suitability: 3 years +

BJ157

 Dixit is a light-hearted party game that works brilliantly when played by a group of 5 or 6 creative people.  It does not work so well with competitive, analytical types.  Yes, there is scoring and a winner but this is a game where the spirit in which you play the game  is more important than who won it.

The rules are quite straightforward.  You are dealt a hand of 6 cards.  The artwork on thesre cards is wonderful, somewhat whimsical, almost surreal.  One of the players is nominated to be the 'Story Teller'.  That person then chooses one of his cards and thinks up a clue about it.  That clue can be anything, a single word, a sentence, a short story, even just a sound.  The other players then look at their own cards and pick one for which the clue might also apply.  The Story Teller then takes each player's chosen card, shuffles them up with his own and then lays them all down face up. Players then have to guess which card is the Story Teller's.  This is where the skill of the Story Teller comes in.  If the clue is too obvious, everyone will guess correctly and the Story Teller gets no points.  If the clue is too obtuse and no one guesses correctly, again the Story Teller gets no points.  Ater each round, there is inevitably a post-mortem discussion and then a new round begins with a different story teller.

Games take about 30 minutes.

3 - 6 players (up to 12 with one of the expansions)

Age suitability: 8 - adult

Jungle Speed is a fast and furious, somewhat chaotic, game of observation and then of lightning reflexes, so that rules me out.

It is a matching game, a bit like snap, but, instead of calling out snap when two cards match, you have to be the first to grab the Totem (the yellow rubber cylinder thing) that sits in the middle of the table.

The cards are divided equally amongst the players (the more, the merrier).  On each card is a symbol in a variety of colours.  Some symbols are quite different, others are deceptively alike. Players place their cards in a pile face down in front of them.  One by one, each player flips over the top card and agradually makes a discard pile.  When one player flips over a card whose symbol matches the shape of the symbol on the top card of another player's discard pile, both players make a lunge for the Totem.  The winner then smugly hands over his discard cards to the loser who puts both these and his own discard cards face down under his cards.  Grabbing the Totem mistakenly results in you getting everybody's discard cards. The winner of the game is the first to get rid of all their cards.

To complicate the game further, there are several special cards.  One of these special cards for example changes the rules so that you have to match the colour of symbols rather than the shape. A different special card requires every player to lunge simultaneously for the Totem.  A third one requires everybody to flip over a card at he same time on the count of three.

Based on the classic nursery rhyme, you race up to the top of the drain pipe but everyone knows what happens if it rains!

2 - 4 players

Age suitability: 3 - 6 years 

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Orchard Toys is a Norfolk-based company designing and making their games in-house. They have been going for years and have a reputation for producing good, honest games which are both fun and educational.  All the games are fully tested by teachers and of course by children so they are totally safe and dependable.

Most of the games are aimed at the 3-6 year olds.  To an adult the games will inevitably seem somewhat simplistic but they really know that age group so I never have any hesitation about recommending them.  Obviously children develop at different rates so some children may not be able to follow the instructions at first but that doesn't seem to matter as they enjoy playing with the colourful cards.  As the child develops, it isn't long before they fully appreciate the game and they benefit from the educational aspects whilst enjoying themselves.

A memory game that encourages healthy eating and good manners.

Everybody takes a playing board on which are six pictures of healthy foods.  The food cards are placed face down on the table.  The players then take it in turn to pick a card.  If a player picks a card showing one of the healthy foods on his board, he places it on his board.  If it doesn't match but it is still a healthy food, it goes back on the table face down.  If it is an unhealthy food (on a yellow background), it is fed to the gorilla who will burp after which all players must say 'excuse me'.  The winner is the player who fills his board first.

2-4 players

Age suitability: 4 - 8 years

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Orchard Toys is a Norfolk-based company designing and making their games in-house. They have been going for years and have a reputation for producing good, honest games which are both fun and educational.  All the games are fully tested by teachers and of course by children so they are totally safe and dependable.

Most of the games are aimed at the 3-6 year olds.  To an adult the games will inevitably seem somewhat simplistic but they really know that age group so I never have any hesitation about recommending them.  Obviously children develop at different rates so some children may not be able to follow the instructions at first but that doesn't seem to matter as they enjoy playing with the colourful cards.  As the child develops, it isn't long before they fully appreciate the game and they benefit from the educational aspects whilst enjoying themselves.

A fun way to introduce children to the 2, 5 and 10 times tables by tossing pancakes in the air.

2 - 4 players

Age suitability: 5-8 years

101

Snakes and Ladders on one side of a colourful fairy-themed board, Ludo on the reverse.

2-4 players

Age suitability: 5 - 9 years

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A simple matching and memory game.  Each player has a board with 6 dinosaur pictures on.  The picture cards are placed faced downwards on the table.  Players take it in turn to pick a card.  If it matches one of the pictures on their card, they keep it.  If not, the card is returned to the table face downwards and it's the next player's turn.

The winner is the one who completes their dinosaur board first.

2 - 4 players

Age suitability: 3 - 7 years

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Orchard Toys is a Norfolk-based company designing and making their games in-house. They have been going for years and have a reputation for producing good, honest games which are both fun and educational.  All the games are fully tested by teachers and of course by children so they are totally safe and dependable.

Most of the games are aimed at the 3-6 year olds.  To an adult the games will inevitably seem somewhat simplistic but they really know that age group so I never have any hesitation about recommending them.  Obviously children develop at different rates so some children may not be able to follow the instructions at first but that doesn't seem to matter as they enjoy playing with the colourful cards.  As the child develops, it isn't long before they fully appreciate the game and they benefit from the educational aspects whilst enjoying themselves.

This game was 'Game of the Year' in 2017.  Superficially it is quite simple.  Everybody starts with a castle, around which you build your kingdom.  Then you choose your dominoes.  On these are pictured the type of lands you will have in your kingdom.  So you might have a domino with a square of forest at one end and water at the other, or another with meadow at both ends. After you have chosen each domino, you lay it around the castle and, like in dominoes, you can only put a farmland domino next to another farmland and so on. At each step your kingdom gets bigger.  The aim though is to build as big an area of each type of land as you can within your kingdom.  So you score more points if you have a block of five squares of farmland together than you would if those five squares were split. Once you have all placed your dominoes, that's the end of the game and you have to total the points.

Each round takes about 15 minutes.

2 - 4 players

Age suitability: 8 +

 Photosynthesis comes in a gorgeous box and the components, the trees and the board, are excellent too.  Luckily it's also a great game.

The idea is too plant, grow and eventually to harvest trees making the most of the available light at the same time as throwing your neighbour's trees into shadow.  The complication though is that the sun gradually moves round the table, altering what's in the light and what's in the shadows.

Each game takes about an hour.

2-4 players

 Age suitability: 8+

Here's a video from the game designers:

Rat-a-Tat-Cat is a quick and fun card game that should not trouble most people intellectually even though it has been endorsed by Mensa. A good memory helps though.

The aim is to assemble a hand of four cards that, when revealed, add up to the lowest possible number.  Cat cards are low number cards and so are good whereas rat cards have high numbers and should be discarded.  The problem is that you are only allowed to look at two of your cards and then only at the start of each game.

At each turn, you have a choice.  You can take the discard card and swap it with one of your cards.  Of course you know at the start the value of two of your cards but not of the other two cards, so it's a risk that you might be discarding a low value card.  You can take the unknown card off the top of the park and, having seen it, decide whether to keep it or put it back in the discard pile face up. Alternatively you may draw a 'power card' which could enable you to have a peek at one of your cards or swap one of yours, sight unseen, with one of your opponents.

When someone thinks they have assembled a winning hand, they call out rat-a-tat-cat and everybody has to add up the value of their cards to determine who has won that round.

Tha game takes about 20 minutes.

2-6 players

Age suitability: 6 +

Sleeping Queens is a card game in which the first player to wake up four of the 12 queens is the winner.  So you lay out the 12 queens face down (sleeping) on the table and deal five cards to each player. The stack of remaining cards is placed (face down) in the centre of the table.  When it's your turn, you must play one of your cards.   

Playing a king means that you get to wake up a queen; a knight enables you to steal one of your opponents' queens unless they hold a dragon card which counteracts a knight;  a sleeping potion card is used to send an opponent's queen back to sleep unless they can negate that with a magic wand card; jokers allow you to pick up another card from the pile number cards can be discarded singly or in multiples. At the end of your turn you pick up fresh cards so that you always have five cards in your card and of course you hope to pick the useful cards that will enable you to win more queens.  Sounds complicated but it's not really.  Each game takes about 20 minutes.

2 - 5 players

Age suitability: 8+  (although the game was invented by a six year old and many children below 8 will be able to enjoy the game)