Memory

Players in Mascarade start with six coins and a randomly dealt character card. Characters stay face up just long enough for players to more or less memorize them, then are turned face down. Your goal is to be the first player to hold 13 coins, and while you start nearly halfway to that goal, you can go down just as surely as you can go up!

On a turn you take one of three actions:

1) Announce your character: Claim the power of a certain character and take the associated action. You don't have to have that character card in front of you to take this action, but if someone else says that they're that character and reveals the card to prove it, that player takes the action instead while you lose one coin to the tribunal.

2) Swap cards or not: Take another player's character card along with yours, place them under the table, shuffle them around a bit, then give one card back to the other player while keeping one for yourself. You (presumably) know whether you changed characters and can have some idea of who you are now, but that other player might be in the dark.

3) Secretly look at your character: Look at your character card to make sure of who you are.

Play continues until one player obtains 13 coins and wins!

Mascarade includes more character cards than the number of players, so not all characters will be used in each game. The rules suggest that you use certain characters in your first games, but once you know the game, you can try many other distributions. The first edition of Mascarade contains 13 characters. The beggar (woman) has no special ability. Bruno Faidutti says on his blog: "...she has no ability so far. I always like to find blank cards in a game, for which I can imagine my own effects. Here, the card is not blank – it has a picture and a name, but you can devise its effect, and I'm sure there'll be some prize for the best idea."

For a long, long time, goblins and fairies have lived in a magical world right beneath our noses. If you look hard enough, you can find rings of mushrooms, called "fairy rings", which act as doors between their world and ours. Today, a gang of mischievous goblins escaped from the fairy ring, and it is up to the players to send them back before they cause trouble! But an ancient spell of rhymes which transforms goblins into fairies and fairies into goblins makes this a trickier task than you might think...

Goblins Drool, Fairies Rule!, a card game of rhyme and reason for kids of all ages, is for 2 to 4 players, and has special solitaire rules for a single player. The game takes about 15 minutes to setup and play. The components consist of 20 unique cards, each card having one side representing a Goblin, and another side representing a Fairy. Each side of a card has one of four Symbols: a Sun, a Moon, a Mushroom, or a Frog. The names of the Fairies and Goblins are divided into five rhyming groups, each name ending in one of five sounds.

Players begin the game with 4 cards each, goblin-side-up. Four cards are placed fairy-side-up in the middle of the table, called the "Fairy Ring". The goal of the game is to be the first player to get rid of all their Goblins by sending them to the Fairy Ring, or be the first to obtain six Fairies. Players take turns adding one of their cards to the Fairy Ring. When a card is added, any other cards in the Fairy Ring which rhyme with the name on the added card are flipped over: Fairies become Goblins and Goblins become Fairies. Once all rhyming cards have been flipped over, the player then takes any cards from the Fairy Ring which match the symbol on the added card. The first player to end their turn with no more Goblins or with six Fairies wins.

Publisher's description of this new hex-tile game scheduled to debut at Essen 2008:

"Logan Stones is a two player strategic game that encourages memory and tactical thinking. It is played without a board, using 18 tactile pieces that are etched and painted on both sides with different symbols.

The game has simple rules that are based on the visually recognizable symbols of Rock Paper Scissors.

Logan Stones takes the simplicity of ‘Rock Paper Scissors’ and adds to it a fast paced, fun game, that can also be played with strategic precision for a much more thought provoking experience. The aim is to make a line of 4 of the same symbol, but as you and your opponent are in control of the same stones and with them constantly being flipped over to reveal new symbols, it’s not as simple as it sounds."

WHATZIT?™ are cunningly disguised names, phrases and sayings that are turned around, upside-down, sideways or jumbled up.

You need to work out the hidden word or phrase on each card. It could be the size, position or direction that will give you a clue. Sometimes, the pictures combined with a word or a number will give you your answer

1987 - BOARD GAME:

In 'Whatzit?' the object is to solve rebus-like puzzles. (PLAY PLAY might be "double play") The roll of a die determines if you play solo, against everyone, or challenge a specific opponent. The winner moves the roll of a d6. Special spaces allow you to take a shortcut by solving a tougher "Wicked Whatzit". First to the top of the board wins.

The Rose Art edition of the game has new puzzles. The puzzles are divided into three categories of difficulty. The more difficult the puzzle, the more points it is worth. Four puzzles from each category are placed randomly in a the three by four frame. Players must solve puzzles which are orthogonally to the previously solved puzzle. The first player to reach an agreed to number of points is the winner.

HISTORY:

Known as WHATZIT?™ in the USA and Canada, KATCH-ITS™ in Australia/NZ and DINGBATS® in the UK and rest of world, are syndicated internationally, in newspapers, best-selling books and TV shows. The family board game was voted ‘Game of the Year’ in the UK and ‘Toy of the Year’ in the USA. Since then, over 2 million DINGBATS and WHATZIT board games, travel games and best-selling books have been created.

2009/2010 - iPHONE & iPOD TOUCH VERSION OF BOARD GAME:

Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of 'WHATZIT?' (since the first 'WHATZIT?' were published in Newspapers in 1980), Paul Sellers, the inventor of 'WHATZIT?' has created a new version of the game for iPhone and iPod Touch.

You can play against the clock and see if you can achieve the fastest time in the world. This highly-addictive assortment contains 15 levels of 'Sellers' favourite 180 mind-boggling puzzles for the first release and will be adding more card packs in future releases.

'WHATZIT?' is available for download on the iTunes App Store now, and you can see the new website http://www.whatzit.com, which also has a link to the 'WHATZIT?' Boardgame for iPhone.

The Memory Crime Game with a Sneaky Selection of Suspects

This comical crime game is perfect for showing off your memory skills. Travel the game board and stop at each of six crime scenes to take a five-second eyewitness look at the suspect. Study the picture, because when you head back to the police station for a lineup, you’ll face a challenging string of look-alike suspects. Kids who can analyze, differentiate and remember the smallest details will come out ahead. But there’s a glitch in the system: a Lucky Break could trip up even the most solid ID.