|
|
Top-10 Family Games at Games Expo 2007Kids Get KO’d, Sheared and Shunned for FunGames Expo’s debut 2007 show in Las Vegas highlighted strategic board games, fantasy games and just-plain-fun games for the family. TDmonthly Magazine focused (literally) on that last category, training its video camera on some of the newest fare for kids and their folks. These top-10 games help players learn everything from how to avoid ruthless boxing promoters in Boxing Express’ The Original Boxing’s Greatest Championship (ToyShow) to the most efficient way to abduct cows with Playroom Entertainment’s Cosmic Cows. Some of the games are so new, they won’t be ready to launch until fourth quarter, but there’s nothing like getting your foot in the door before the next store: The Original Boxing's Greatest Championship
by
BOXING EXPRESS INC. High School
Drama! by SHIFTING SKIES GAMES Global Odysee
by ODYSEE GAMES Civil Lore! – The
Game of American Culture by
EVOLVING TOYS LLC Can-Do Roo
by PATCH PRODUCTS INC. The World Cup
Game by GAMES FOR THE WORLD Shear Panic
by
MAYFAIR GAMES INC. Metamorfo
by MCWIZ GAMES Penguin
by FANTASY FLIGHT INC. Cosmic Cows
by PLAYROOM ENTERTAINMENT |
In
this hilarious card game, each participant plays
a high-school student trying to get his or her
clique to take over the school. Players can hook
up with other students, spread vicious rumors
about their rivals and forge fake bonds. They
can earn yearbook signatures by going to special
events or receive student standouts like cutest
couple and most artistic. Players start as
freshmen, but the one with the most yearbook
signatures at the end of graduation wins. High
School Drama! “was designed to be played in
mixed company because guys and girls equally
love making fun of the high school experience,”
Game Designer Boyan Radakovich told TDmonthly,
also noting that the satirical game is popular
with tween girls. Launch date: May-June 2007.
Global
Odysee is a three-dimensional travel game
designed to teach players about the world and
its natural features, nations, people and
cultures. It uses beautiful satellite imagery,
and players can choose to travel along realistic
3-D routes between places of interest using
different transportation modes. Planned regional
versions of the game include American Odysee,
Australian Odysee, European Odysee and Kiwi
Odysee. Creator Len Wicks told TDmonthly
that the following qualities set the game apart:
its portrayed realism and 3-D landscape; the
required strategy and decision-making; dice
operation that allows for multiple and varied
moves; and dual versions (home city and time
limit) that cater to all needs and markets,
including schools. Launch date: October
2007. 3/27/2007 (Price: $55.00; Age: 8 and Up)
Players
battle to win the board using their knowledge of
America’s cultural lore. They strategize and
stake flags that others try to topple. Six fun
cultural categories contain questions about folk
stories, urban legends, roadside attractions,
amazing oddities, unsolved mysteries and many
other varieties of fascinating cultural lore.
This
soft kangaroo has a pouch full of activities to
help teach numbers, letters, colors and shapes
to children. The preschool game also includes
activities, such as hopping like a kangaroo and
imitating the sounds and actions of animals, so
children have fun while learning. “The kangaroo
holds all the Fun Cards in its pouch and serves
as a soft and cuddly companion for
preschoolers,” Barbara Uebelacker, public
relations manager for Patch Products, told
TDmonthly. Launch
date: May 2007. 1/22/2007 (Price: $14.99; Age: 4
and Up) 
This
game of luck and skill recreates the excitement
of the World Cup soccer tournament. Can players
guide a European team to victory in
This
educational game teaches youngsters to play
checkers while also covering the concept of
metamorphosis. It features a brightly colored
magnetized board, magnetized plush caterpillars,
butterflies and ladybugs, and a bonus
tic-tac-toe board on the opposite side. It is
trilingual in English, Spanish and French. “The
unique transparent carrying case allows
customers to see exactly what is inside the
box,” Valerie Therrien, director of marketing
and communications for McWiz Games, told
TDmonthly. 
This
delightfully simple and fiendishly addictive new
game by world-renowned designer Reiner Knizia
challenges players to find room for all their
penguins on the ice. “Penguin blends the simple
joy of stacking plastic penguins with subtle and
devious strategy. It is unique in that it is a
delightfully and attractively simple game with
unsuspected depths of strategy and fun! Penguin
is simple enough to teach in ten seconds,
accessible enough for children, and engrossing
enough for adults,” Marketing Associate Dan
Clark of Fantasy Flight told TDmonthly.
Launch date: June 2007. 
It's
time for the Annual Extraterrestrial Cow-Pulling
Contest, and aliens from all over the galaxy
have come to watch the event. Players go head to
head with cross-cosmos rivals to see who can
abduct three Cosmic Cows first. The number
combinations that are rolled determine the
movement of the cows, and each player can choose
which tractor beam to use in order to abduct
them. With a good mix of strategic offensive
and defensive maneuvers, players decide which
combination of the unknowing bovines to pull
toward their spaceship or away from the
opponent's. The player that pulls three cows
into his or her Win Zone first is the winner in
this dicey game of alien tug-of-war. Game play
is about 20 minutes. The game includes a
gameboard, 10 dice, 10 Cow Pawns, plus
instructions in English, French and Spanish. The
game is designed for two players or
teams. 3/28/2007 (Price: $15.00; Age: 8 and Up)
