It's called Animal Mastermind Towers - it's for two players and no batteries - and the goal is to guess the order of your opponent's animals before they guess yours. You can only ask yes or no questions, and they have to take the form "is your A under your B" or "is your C above your D".I played it repeatedly with the six year old, who was completely entranced. Yes, I sniggered to myself every time I asked her "Is your giraffe on top of your pig?", but I loved watching her pick up the logic of how to ask the questions (and arrange her cards so as to get the right answer.
It's a pretty light-weight as logic puzzles go; I figured out the simple strategy almost immediately. It does have an element of luck about it - if you get a "yes" answer to a question, you get to go again, but you're stopped if you get a "no" answer (even though a "no" answer gives you as much information as a "yes" answer). Nevertheless, I'd far rather play this than Candyland, and someday sooner than later, she'll be ready for real Mastermind.
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The kind folks at Pressman Toys are giving away a copy of Animal Mastermind Towers to one of you readers. All you have to do is leave a comment, and tell me what games you played as a kid. Comments close on Monday, 9/13 at noon EST. Make sure you leave a valid email address (like, sign in with your Blogger account). The game will be shipped to you by the company. Nobody paid me for this review, though I did get a free copy of the game.
Edited to add: The winner is #6 - FreshHell!
14 comments:
I do remember that game! What games did I play? I remember the classrooms being full of board games, as well as my mother's third floor walk up attic. I lived monopoly, clue, yahtzee, Hen andchicks, and gin rummy. A game I bought this year was No Stress Chess which teaches the game in steps using cards to dictate moves initially. I'd recommend that one.
I never played Mastermind, but I did enjoy playing the standard games like Clue and Connect4!
I loved Mastermind as a kid and I've been wanting to get AJ a copy, but they seem to have dumbed it down from 5-peg codes to 4. As a result, we don't have a game. I am boycotting out of pique.
Oooh, never hear of Mastermind. But it does sound a little like Guess Who? that we play sometimes.
As a kid we didn't really have many games, we mostly played cards -- crazy eights, rummy, 500. Although I did play RISK with my brother, and we had Miles Bourne (did you post about that before, or was it Slouchy? one of you did!).
I can remember playing mastermind with my grandma about a million times - I loved that game! We played tons of games but that one and Racko were my favorites. I also loved ones called Cat's Eye and Popcorn, but the adults hated them because they were noisy.
Loved Mastermind as a kid and found an original version of it at a yardsale. I particularly like Yatzee and Parcheesi and Masterpiece as a kid. That kid's Mastermind sounds very cool.
I remember Mastermined, too. Other games I played were Connect 4, Candyland, and Life. Plus I remember really getting into Monopoly, and setting up games with my stuffed animals as the other players. I also remember a lot of card games. Go Fish, Crazy 8s, Kings in the Corners, and eventually poker.
We played card games (lots of rummys, and canasta, although i suppose that was when I was older). I never liked Monopoly, but I did love Trouble, and Clue, and Four Score. Oh, and spit (the card game).
These days, we are loving playing a lot of Jenga and Mancala--games that are fun for adults as well as kids.
I LOVED Mastermind. Also Russian Bank, which I played for hours with one of my cousins.
Sounds fun -- I did like Mastermind too!
Clue and Careers, those were my favorite childhood games. Found Monopoly too too boring. Mastermind came later, but I like that a lot.
interesting. i like tyeh guess who games, which also teach how to ask questions and process the answers. and I had forgotten all about mastermind... played it all the time as a kid, too!
Sounds like fun -- something my son would enjoy!
When I was young, I played lots of card games (War, Crazy 8s, Go Fish, and solitaire), Monopoly, Life, Clue, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, and Yahtzee.
I played Scrabble, Pit, Boggle, Uno & Clue. I also played spin the botle & Seven Minutes in Heaven, but that was a bit later.
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