Memory games your kids will remember

by micheal erb
Looking for some fun games that will help exercise your child’s memory as well as their imagination? Below are two such games for younger kids, but fun for older ones as well.

The Crazy Mixed-Up

Zoo Game

Players: 2-4

Age: 4+

Time: 15 min.

Cost: $28

Ever seen those pictures where you look at the first one, then try to figure out what is different in the second picture? Well, The Crazy Mixed-Up Zoo Game from SimplyFun takes that idea and makes it into a more interactive style of board game.

The setup is simple and designed for younger players. There are 12 animals each represented by their own large cardboard tile. Each tile has an image of the cartoon animal on the front and a slightly different version of the same character on the back. Each side also has a different color.

The pieces are laid out on the table or floor and each player takes a turn changing two animal tiles, which exchange places and are flipped over while the other players hide their eyes or look away.

Each player also has a personal game board with three magnetic markers and pictures of all 12 animals. There also is a scoring track with four spaces. The player who switches the animals uses their magnetic pieces to mark on their board (kept out of sight of the other players) which animals they changed. Each player then places their own magnetic markers on their boards, choosing which two animals they believe are different. This allows you to have up to four players playing at the same time, with one making the changes and three making guesses.

Each player that guesses correctly moves their marker on the scoring track one space. If no one gets both animals correct, the player that made the change moves a space. The first player to move their piece three spaces wins.

Though simple, the game is ideal for younger children. The game encourages memory, bluffing and some counting, as well as an eye for detail, and kids love the cartoon animals. You also can scale the difficulty for younger ones by using fewer tiles.

A really cute twist to the “first player” dilemma is whoever makes the best monkey sound becomes the starting player. Ook ook, eek eek.

For more information on The Crazy Mixed-Up Zoo Game or other SimplyFun games, visit www.simplyfun.com.

Thing-A-Ma-Bots

Players: 2-6

Age: 6+

Time:12 min.

Cost: $6.50

This Gamewright game emphasizes memorization with a twist. The deck of 60 cards has pictures of 12 different kinds of robots, and players are called upon to match them by calling out the names of pairs as they are played. The trick is the first of each kind of robot played is named by the player who played the card. Think that droid looks like a Phil? That’s its name. Think that cat-like robot is a Cat-a-ma-bot? Try to remember that when it comes up again.

The game encourages players to come up with unusual names for the bots that make them difficult to match, but not so difficult they can’t remember the names themselves. Even with younger kids it can be a lot of fun just seeing the crazy or sometimes weirdly-simple names they create. My six-year-old tended to give names based on one or two parts of the bot. Were there sparks on its head? Call him Sparky. A large robot might get the name Big Bot. But what really amazed me was his ability to remember some of the crazy names I gave to robots, a couple of which I had trouble remembering!

The card deck is split evenly among the players, and each takes a turn dealing a card and naming the bot played. Each card is played one at a time face up in a stack in the middle of the table. Players call out the name of an already played bot whenever they see one. The player who successfully names a robot claims the card and all the cards played in the stack. The round then begins over, with all of the bots losing their existing names, so the same style of robot can be named differently several times during the course of the game.

You also can “steal” a player’s win pile if the top robot, the one face up on top of their win deck, is played again in the center pile and you are the first to shout out “Thing-A-Ma-Bot!” That win pile now becomes part of your pile, but remember, other people at the table can do the same to you as well, and a player can protect their pile by being the first to call out “Thing-A-Ma-Bot” when their own card comes up.

The game ends when all cards are played, and the player with the greatest number of cards in their win pile wins.

Since the memorization portion of the game relies on the names given by the players, there is a lot of replay value, and it can actually prove challenging for a group of adults, provided they are really dolling out long and strange names for the robots or have terrible memories.

For more information on Thing-A-Ma-Bots or other Gamewright games, visit www.gamewright.com. For more game reviews, visit http://merb101.livejournal.com or e-mail me at merb@newsandsentinel.com.