It’s Follow-Up Friday: Library Gaming edition!

Posted on November 7, 2014 by gmdirect

Welcome to Follow-Up Friday!

By this time, you know the drill. Follow-Up Friday is a chance for us to revisit the subjects of previous posts and bring the PuzzleNation audience up to speed on all things puzzly.

And today, I’d like to return to the subject of puzzle-game holidays!

[Once again, a board game brings a family together…]

In the past I’ve written plenty about International TableTop Day, the holiday dedicated to social gaming and puzzling. But did you know that in less than two weeks, another puzzle-game holiday arrives?

That’s right, November 15 is International Games Day, an event organized by the American Library Association “to celebrate the mutually-reinforcing power of play and learning.”

From the I Love Libraries website:

Libraries are about sharing culture and information, and games are a form of culture that you often have to share – you often can’t experience them without another player!

They’re also good for brain health, and foster important life skills like socialization, theory of mind and systems literacy. Plus, they’re fun!

Whether video games, tabletop games, social games or other kinds of games, they’re all a part of culture whose importance is only becoming clearer with time. And that means we need to foster the kind of smart engagement that libraries support, for games as well as books.

And while International TableTop Day is synonymous with board games, card games, and roleplaying games, International Games Day encompasses all of the above and more, including online videogames, trivia games, and any other games you can think of.

It’s a terrific opportunity to come out to support both games and your local library, and maybe make a few new friends along the way!

Let us know if you’ll be participating in International Games Day, PuzzleNationers! We’d love to see pictures and hear all about it!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! You can share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and be sure to check out the growing library of PuzzleNation apps and games!

PuzzleNation Product Review: Bananagrams Wild Tiles

Posted on November 6, 2014 by gmdirect

Scrabble used to be the only letter-tile game in town, but a decade ago, Bananagrams entered the playing field, and it’s quickly become one of the most recognizable names in puzzle gaming.

And I’ll let you in on a little secret: while I’d known them by reputation, I’d never actually played a round of Bananagrams. So when presented with the opportunity to try out the newest member of the Bananagrams family — Bananagrams Wild Tiles — I was definitely looking forward to putting my puzzly skills to the test.

For those unfamiliar with Bananagrams, it’s a word formation game with a sense of urgency and freedom. Your goal is to use all the tiles in your hand to build words that cross and interact as they would in a standard letter-tile game, but with no board to restrict the words. And your opponents are building their own grids at the same time. It’s a race to complete your grid by arranging and rearranging the letters, putting your vocabulary and anagram chops on display.

Bananagrams Wild Tiles offers a spin on the familiar Bananagrams formula — there are six Wild Tiles, depicting the Bananagrams monkey mascot, and these tiles can represent any letter of the alphabet. That’s right, these are six get-out-of-trouble free cards in monkey tile form.

This seems like a minor change, but it makes a major difference in gameplay, since one Wild Tile can add serious adaptability to your hand, upping the stakes.

When playing with fewer players, I highly recommend limiting the tile pile to 3 Wild Tiles; otherwise, the game goes too quickly. (My friends and I also introduced another variant playing style, only allowing one Wild Tile — the one attached to the zipper of the Bananagrams bag — which was awarded to whoever made the most horrendous banana/monkey pun during the first round.)

Bananagrams Wild Tiles is a perfect gateway game to introduce puzzles both younger and older who might’ve been put off by the more rigid, more intimidating aesthetic of Scrabble. With its lighthearted packaging, free-form gameplay, and endless replayability, this one is a winner.