Don’t Pick Your Nose, the Game

Don’t Pick Your Nose is one of three … products from 4bambini, makers of educational … products. I hesitate to call them games, as they are simply flash card matching activities, but you can decide after watching their slick marketing video.

UNO for the Ipod

UNO is now available to play on your Ipod for $5.

That’s all I have to say on that.

(source)

A Chess Set You Can Use in a Hurricane

The makers of the New Wave Chess & Checkers set claim that it is so sturdy, you can play chess on opposite sides of a field and toss the board back and forth like a flying disk. Or you can play with it in a hurricane.

Of course, this begs the question …

(source)

A Whole Lot of Game Tournaments Going On

Seems like a whole lot of gaming going on this week:

The first International Chess festival in Jerusalem is underway. Check out the funky costumes at the opening ceremonies outside the Old City. (UPDATE: pictures)

The 2008 U.S. National Magic: the Gathering Championship in Chicago. $20,000 worth of prizes to take home, not to mention invitations to Worlds, laptops, Ipods, blah blah.

Conneticon is a large comic, sci-fi, and gaming conference in Hartford, CT.

Defcon7 in Tulsa.

Fandemonium in Idaho.

Mechcon in Lafayette.

New England Gaming Association in Maine.

Ancient City Con in Jacksonville.

The World Board Gaming Championships are next week. Over 100 games to be played. If you like playing seriously, this is the event.

And Gen Con is the week after that.

Zombies Online Invasion

Not only did Joystiq take the time to mention that Zombies!!! is now available on XBox Live, io9, Gawker’s sci-fi blog, took some time out to note a brain-scoop of zombie-themed board games.

Mentioned games include Zombies!!!, Zombies!!! Soccer, and the “What Would a Zombie Do?” spinner by Twilight Creations, Zombie Fluxx by Looney Labs, and Last Night on Earth by Flying Frog Productions

Train Your Children With Candy-Themed Board Games

Candyland was introduced at a time when the extreme negative effects of candy were not yet well-known. Oh, we knew it could spoil your appetite and give you a stomach-ache, but not about the obesity, tooth-decay, and addiction.

So I grant Candyland an excuse.

What then do we do about Eat It, the snack food trivia game that challenges you to know, for instance, how many licks it taked to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll?

(source)

Scrabble, Scrabulous, Wordscraper: The Story That Won’t End

It’s the story that just won’t die.

Scrabulous’ creators took the app offline after they were finally sued by Hasbro, North America’s Scrabble rights owner, who only sued after they got their own application up and (barely) working.

The next day, rather than being able to capitalize on a massive shift of users to Hasbro’s app, Hasbro’s app was crashed all day, which EA (the app’s designers) and Hasbro blame on disgruntled Scrabulous hackers.

Lo and behold, the next day Scrabulous returns as a new app with slightly different rules and a different name: Wordscraper.

The changes pretty much eliminate the copyright and trademark problems, as far as my lay-person addled brain can determine. But will they get around all the lawsuit’s problems? Time will tell.

Candyland Boundless Playground

The Give Kids the World Village in Orlando, Florida, a resort for children with life-threatening illnesses, recently opened a life-sized version of Candyland. The playground has all the elements of the classic children’s board game, including a colorful trail that leads through Gumdrop Pass and the Lollipop Forest to the Candy Castle. Hasbro, which has been a longtime supporter of Give Kids the World, donated this special version of Mathew’s Boundless Playground as the first step in a major expansion of the Village. Equipment was provided by GameTime, which has partnered with the National Center for Boundless Playgrounds to build a number of accessible playgrounds for children with disabilities.

(video)

TNA Wrestling Board Game

TNA = Total Non-stop Action, which I assume applies to the wrestling, not to the board game. It’s a trivia and observation game.

(pre-order, blog)

Quelf and FlapDoodle on the Move

Wiggity Bang Games is licensing Quelf and FlapDoodle to Imagination Entertainment Ltd. of Australia. Both are family party games where players answer crazy questions and perform stunts. They should fit in well with Imagination’s current stable of games, which includes Battle of the Sexes, Beat the Parents, and Fact or Crap.

(source)