Tag Archives: Kickstarter

PuzzleNation Product Review: Tak•tak

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When it comes to strategy puzzle games, no matter how complex or how simple the actual game mechanics, the game itself hinges on the two players involved. After all, two extremely tactical puzzlers can make checkers look like chess.

Now, imagine a game that combines the pattern-matching of Uno, the strategy of chess, and the mechanics of Upwords, and adds a scoring element to boot. It might sound complicated, but I promise, it’s as simple as checkers.

Tak•tak is a two-player strategy scoring game designed by the folks at Twizmo Games, and it’s another puzzle game brought to life thanks to a successful crowdfunding campaign. Although Twizmo Games is best known for twisty puzzles (or Rubik’s Cube-style puzzles), they’ve taken a strong step into the traditional board game market with Tak•tak.

Each player starts with 12 tiles, each tile bearing a different score (10, 20, 30, or 40) and a different color (green, blue, or yellow). The two rows nearest the player form that player’s safe zone. The three rows in the middle are the war zone.

Your goal is to get as many points as possible into your opponent’s safe zone by stacking your tiles, crossing the war zone, and either capturing or maneuvering around your opponent’s tiles. You can only move forward (either straight or diagonally), so this is a game about tactics and initiative.

You build your stacks by matching either point values or colors. For instance, you can stack a yellow 20 and a yellow 40, or a yellow 30 and a green 30, and either of those new stacks would represent 60 points. This enables you to move more tiles around the board quickly. (But careful: once you’ve stacked tiles, they stay stacked for the rest of the game.)

But those matching rules also apply to your opponent’s tiles! When you and your opponent cross paths in the war zone, you can stack your tiles onto theirs and steal those points for yourself. (The stacks you make from your own tiles can only go three tiles high, but stacks made from your tiles AND your opponent’s tiles can go as high as you want! Heck, a stack might change owners several times and tower over the game board!)

The game ends when one player has no more available moves. (There are other ways to end the game if you choose to use the advanced game play rules, but we’ll stick with the basic rules for now.) And then it’s time to count your tiles.

You earn points for all of the tiles you’ve moved into your opponent’s safe zone (including any of your opponent’s tiles that are in stacks you control), plus points for any tiles your opponent never moved into the war zone. (Meaning they were never “in play.”) Highest score wins!

Tak•tak builds a lot of versatility and play possibilities into a game with checkers-simple mechanics, and the more you play, the more fun it is to delve deeper into tactics and strategy. It was worth losing 50 points for keeping a few tiles in my safe zone when they prevented a stack of my opponent’s tiles from scoring.

The clever mix of classic game-play elements not only makes Tak•tak so easy to dive into, but also ensures new players can more time actively playing and less time worrying about learning the rules (a common downfall for more complicated strategy games).

The designers claim the game is appropriate for ages 8 through 108, and I think they’re right on the money.

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: Adorable Pandaring

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Crowdfunding has significantly changed the world of puzzles and games by offering a new avenue for creators and fans to directly interact and determine whether a game or a puzzle suite becomes a viable product. Many puzzle constructors and game companies are using crowdfunding to both assess the public’s interest in a given game or puzzle AND to raise funds for an initial printing.

And in today’s product review, I’ll be giving the full PuzzleNation treatment to a card game born on Kickstarter and realized through crowdfunding. Let’s talk about Adorable Pandaring, created by Chris Cieslik and Asmadi Games!

In Adorable Pandaring, your goal is to gain bamboo by collecting as many adorable pandas as possible. The trouble is, everyone else is collecting pandas too, and the definition of adorable can change depending on the cards on the table! It’s panda law.

Each panda card has a value and an action. The value lets you know if the panda is adorable or not, depending on the panda law at the time. Sometimes high-numbered pandas are adorable, sometimes low-numbered ones are. Sometimes even-numbered pandas are adorable, sometimes odd-numbered ones are.

The action allows you to affect either an opponent or the game itself. You might gain bamboo, change the panda law, trade cards with an opponent, reveal hidden pandas… there are lots of options, some with exciting consequences.

This is a wonderful mix of poker-style strategy — which card information you share with your opponents and which you conceal — and Fluxx-style rule-shifting chaos. At any time, the panda law can change and your adorable pandas lose their value, or everyone’s hidden cards are revealed and bamboo is awarded.

[A random sampling of the super-cute pandas AND
several ways you can affect the game by playing them.]

And the art is delightful. The pandas are hilarious and, yes, adorable, whether they’re disappointed by dropped ice cream cones or looking sharp in secret agent tuxedo-wear.

Great fun for three to five players, Adorable Pandaring promises adorable pandas and delivers a lot more, making a terrific gateway card game for younger players and a delightful quick-play game for all ages.

(You can pick up a copy from the Asmadi Games store here.)

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!

Indie 500, Titan Series, and 100 Games updates!

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Today’s blog post is all about what’s going on in the world of puzzles and games, and let me tell you, some awesome exciting things are afoot for puzzlers in the days ahead!

First off, The Indie 500 crossword tournament is this weekend!

There are only a few days left to sign up for this new puzzle tournament spearheaded by constructors Erik Agard, Peter Broda, Neville Fogarty, Andy Kravis, Evan Birnholz, and Finn Vigeland. And if you can’t make it to Washington, D.C., this weekend, don’t fret! For just $10, you can participate from home, receiving the puzzles by mail or email. (There are even bonus puzzles being offered, and you name your own price!)

You better believe I’ve already signed up for both sets of puzzles. I can’t wait to see what the Indie 500 crew has in store for its inaugural event.

Secondly, there are only a few days left to contribute to the incredibly ambitious Titan Series Kickstarter campaign. A three-year, nine-game program masterminded by the folks at Calliope Games, the Titan Series involves some of the top names in the field of board games and card games, including James Ernest, Paul Peterson, Zach and Jordan Weisman, and Eric Lang.

Congratulations are already in order, as the campaign passed its initial funding goal of $135,000 (!!!), and is now pursuing additional games as stretch goals! Although the entire lineup of games created for the Titan Series won’t be completed until 2018, there will be plenty to talk about in the months ahead.

Finally, there is a list floating out there called the 100 Games You Must Know, and Amber Cook has accepted the challenge. She’s launched a blog called The 100 Games Project, and she intends to tackle all one hundred games on the list!

As a member of the Looney Labs team, Amber has contributed to some terrific games herself, so I’m looking forward to reading her thoughts as she experiences all sorts of new games and puzzly challenges.

With so much going on in the world of puzzles and games, it’s hard to keep up, but immensely worthwhile.

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!

It’s Follow-Up Friday: Kickstarter Round-up edition!

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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 in today’s post, I’m returning to the subject of puzzly crowdfunding campaigns!

I’ve covered various campaigns for board games, card games, and puzzle projects across the Kickstarter and Indiegogo crowdfunding platforms over the years, and today I’d like to share three more that could use your attention.

The first is Peter Gordon’s Fireball Newsflash Crosswords.

Culturally timely clues and entries are a hallmark of this marvelous variation on his long-running Fireball Crosswords brand, and Gordon has a knack for melding flowing grid design with sharp, topical entry words.

He’s in the home stretch (only hours left in the campaign!) and Gordon’s history of topnotch puzzles is all the incentive you need to contribute.

But he’s not the only puzzler going straight to the puzzle audience with a new collection.

Constructor Brendan Emmett Quigley has a new collection of Marching Bands puzzles, and he’s offering a great deal! Twenty-six Marching Bands puzzles. Talk about value!

The last Kickstarter I want to highlight today comes from the board game end of the spectrum.

The folks at Calliope Games — responsible for Tsuro, one of my new favorites from the last year — have masterminded a three-year, nine-game program with some of the top names in the field, and they want your help bringing the Titan Series to fruition.

These are three intriguing and very worthy projects, and I hope you contribute to one or more of them. As someone who has become a regular donor to various Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns, I am proud to have funded some marvelous new ideas and watched them take shape over the months that followed.

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: Puzzometry

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In the past, I’ve reviewed a few products — Robot Turtles and The Maze of Games, for example — that were crowdfunded before reaching the open market, but today’s product is the first where I’ve completely observed the process from campaign launch to holding the product in my hands.

Today’s product review is Puzzometry, a jigsaw-style piece-placement puzzle with a serious challenge factor.

You’ve got 14 puzzle pieces to place into the frame pictured below, and there’s only one way to place every piece and complete the puzzle. Can you find it?

Created by Jim Fox, Puzzometry had a bit of a rocky road to realization. The initial Kickstarter campaign failed to meet its lofty goals, but Fox, who had remained totally honest and forthright with his backers from day one, reached out to his supporters and presented two possible options: either relaunch on Kickstarter with a lower funding goal or immediately shift all of his efforts to an e-commerce site.

In a close vote, the backers opted for another Kickstarter campaign, which was funded within an hour of launching! In fact, the second campaign was ten times more successful than the original campaign!

Puzzometry comes in three flavors:

  • Puzzometry, which has 14 pieces to fit into the frame
  • Puzzometry Jr., which is smaller and has only 7 pieces to fit into a smaller frame
  • Puzzometry Squares, which also has 14 pieces, but eschews the octagonal shape of many Puzzometry pieces for right angles and more Tetris-like shapes to fit into the frame

[A sampling of Puzzometry’s signature puzzle pieces.]

There’s only one solution that allows you to place every piece in the frame, and the difficulty is a credit to the game’s impressive design. The pieces are all interesting, interlocking in unexpected ways and challenging even savvy jigsaw solvers.

At this point, I’ve only solved Puzzometry Jr. and Puzzometry (I haven’t picked up a copy of Squares yet), and found them both to be great fun. Puzzometry Jr. will be an easy task for older solvers, but it’s a perfect fit for younger puzzlers to introduce them to puzzles beyond the jigsaw format.

Plus, Fox includes instructions for a two-player game called Puzzometry Keepout, which is similar to Blokus. Each player chooses pieces, as if they’re drafting players for a dodgeball team. Then, once all the pieces are allocated, the players take turns placing pieces in the frame. You take turns until someone can’t fit one of their remaining pieces into the frame.

All three versions of Puzzometry are now available on the Puzzometry website, so check them out. They’d make a fine addition to any puzzler’s library.

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!

Puzzle Day Kickstarter Round-up!

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Happy (Inter)National Puzzle Day, fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers!

As I explained on Tuesday, today is a day dedicated to all things puzzly, and lots of puzzlers are joining the celebration!

For instance, our friends at Penny/Dell Puzzles are running a timed Word Seek challenge and encouraging solvers to share pics of themselves doing the challenge on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram using the hashtag #PDPPuzzleDayChallenge!

And, in the spirit of the day, I thought I’d do a crowdfunding round-up of some of the interesting puzzly projects on Kickstarter right now.

First off, I want to talk about Unspeakable Words, a Scrabble-style word-building game with a dash of H.P. Lovecraft.

The game went out of print a while ago, and remaining copies have been in high demand since the game was featured on Wil Wheaton’s board game webseries TableTop. The goal is to print a deluxe version of the game (originally allowing for seven players instead of six, but with several stretch goals reached, they’ve expanded to eight!), with additional stretch goals allowing for better game components.

Now, this is already a Kickstarter success story, because the game funded the first day, so you’re guaranteed to see a finished game before it hits stores.

For a taste of something different, Facets is a wood-and-magnets constructing puzzle toy that allows you to make various shapes based on the Platonic solids. Whether you’re interested in 3-D geometry or just like wooden building toys with a twist, Facets is right up your alley.

Facets has just crossed its funding goal with less than two weeks to go, and it looks like this might be the start of the next generation of Tinker Toys-style constructing toys.

Now, there are a LOT of other campaigns I could mention, like the small 3-D printed puzzle ship (pictured above) or this campaign to make the fake game Cones of Dunshire from NBC’s Parks and Recreation a real Settlers of Catan-style game, but I want to focus on one campaign that’s using puzzles to spread a deeper message.

Alyssa’s Puzzle Project is the brainchild of a young lady named Alyssa who is 12 years old and wants to educate the world — and her fellow students — about the dangers of moral and governmental corruption. So she’s created an awareness-building activity around a jigsaw puzzle, designed for classrooms and students to assemble together. It’s symbolic group problem-solving to raise awareness and spark conversation.

You can read more about Alyssa’s project and her ambitious goals here.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the phenomenal success of Exploding Kittens, a strategy card game that launched with a goal of $10,000 and has raised over 4 MILLION dollars in its first eight days.

It is now the most backed Kickstarter campaign in history, with more than 100,000 backers, and the sky truly appears to be the limit for this card game based on art from The Oatmeal.

I’ve been watching and funding Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns for a few years now, and I (and the rest of the world) have never seen anything like it.

Did I miss any puzzly Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaigns you’ve seen launched recently, fellow puzzlers? Let me know!

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!