Great Value Toys for the Holidays

Toy Directory Monthly just released their picks for 2008 Top Holiday Toys. “If you’re expecting good value for your holiday dollars, TDmonthly can show you 20 great toys that kids will play with long after the celebrations are over.”

It’s great to see that Flibbix made the Top 20 Toys list for this holiday season! Check out the video for some great holiday gift ideas. For those in a hurry, you can jump to the 2:30 mark, but it’s worth watching the whole video.

Or you can click this link to read the transcript.

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We try to reserve news items for the Merillian.com home page instead of our blog, but this was just too fun to pass up. Flibbix is currently the featured board game on Barnes & Noble Jr.!

1. Go to www.bn.com to get to the main Barnes & Noble web site.
2. Click the “B&N Jr.” tab to get to all B&N kids stuff.
3. Check out the Board Game category!

Flibbix is featured out of all the kids games they carry. Very exciting stuff! We were at our local Barnes & Noble store recently and saw a few copies left on the shelf, so it looks like product is now available at your local store, too.

If you’d rather save one click, here’s a direct link to the B&N Jr. page and one direct to the Flibbix page.

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A Game by any other Name (or) how to play Finger Football—

Names are important for games today. A name says a lot about a product, and can instill a sense of fun. For example, the name “Flibbix” comes from the words “Flip,” “Blend,” and “Mix.” These describe how you make a board game (or build a board game board) with Flibbix. Plus, we think the name’s kinda fun to say.

But some games are named for historical reasons. For example, American “Football” has a funny name, considering a foot only touches the ball a few times a game. It turns out that the game is a decedent of Rugby (or officially: “Rugby Football”), where you actually do use your feet on the ball…hence the shortened name “Football.” I guess they couldn’t call it “Handball,” since that name’s already taken. International “Football”—called “Soccer” in the US—seems to fit the name better since that game is still mostly about feet.

Back on topic, today we’re really not here to talk about names, but games. No matter what kind of football you prefer, there’s a classic indoor game that’s a blast to play. It’s especially a great game for those times when you don’t have any other games around: all you need is a piece of paper, a table, and a partner to play. Plus it’s a DIY (Do It Yourself) game. And we love DIY. By the way, you can mix this into your Flibbix game. Land on a Custom Tile and you can have a Finger Football shootout to see who gets to move ahead 8 spaces.

For those who haven’t played before, Finger Football is loosely based on the idea of American Football. The funny thing is that “Finger Football” is an even more mixed-up name, since there’s no foot or ball in the game at all. It’s a blast, though.

How to play:

Items needed:
- 1 piece of paper. US letter-size paper (8.5″ x 11″) works fine. A4 paper likely works as well.
- A rectangular table

Number of players: 2

How to Make a Finger Football:

Follow the steps in the images below to make your own Finger Football:

Playing for a Touch Down:

1. Flick or slide the Finger Football across the table towards your opponent’s end of the table. The goal is to get it all the way to their end of the table so that it’s sticking slightly over the edge of the table without falling off.
2. If you’re able to get the Finger Football to go slightly off the opponent’s end of the table, without falling off, you score a “Touchdown” (6 points). You can now try for a Field Goal.
3. If you slide it off their end of the the table, they can try for a field goal (see below) and get 3 points for making a field goal.
4. If you don’t slide it far enough (so it’s on the table, but not hanging off), then the other player “receives possession” and it’s their turn to take a shot for a touch down….from wherever the football is located.
5. If the football goes off of the sides of the table, it’s out of bounds, and the other player can go for a touch down from the point where it went off the table… or straight across the table from that point.

Playing for a Field Goal

1. You or your opponent should hold your thumbs and index fingers in the shape of an “L” and a backwards “L” so that the index fingers point at each other and thumbs point up. It should look the bottom corners of a picture frame. That’s the field goal.
2. You or your opponent hold the Finger Football so one point of the triangle is resting on the table, one held by a finger on top, and the third points towards the field goal.
3. Try to “flick” the Finger Football between (through or above) the field goal posts
4. Made it? Add an extra point to your touchdown.

Goal of the Game

There aren’t strict rules about how many points it takes to win the game. Pick a target number of points before you begin playing. Maybe 40 is a good number for you, or 60.

Or just play as long as you have time, and see who has the most points at the end.

That’s it! Have fun.

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Flibbix in 100 seconds—

We’ve gotten a lot of requests for a Flibbix intro/demo movie. We think you’re onto a great idea, so we took your advise and made one. Flibbix is an amazingly fun game, and we’d like to see more people experience the joy of making a game that’s perfect for them. It’s such a revolutionary new idea that it helps for people to visually see how it works to really “get” the concept. So we finally got that intro video posted. You can find a YouTube version here…

…or you can view it in higher quality QuickTime format. Click the images below for a medium-size movie (7.6MB) or a large (17MB) high-def movie that show you how to build a board game (or make a board game) with Flibbix—and what all the buzz is about.

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Squished in like it’s a clown car—

One of our little ones had some friends over on a rainy day, and the kids were all playing hide-and-seek in the house. They were having a blast, but hide-and-seek gets kind of old once you’ve been “found” and are waiting for others to get caught. Or it’s a lot of work if everyone hides, but the person who’s “it” only has to find one person.

To get all of the kids more involved, I suggested they give “Sardines” a try. They all looked at me like I was speaking Sanskrit or something. Turns out that none of the kids had ever heard of the game Sardines (including mine…I know, I know).

Every kid should experience the excitement of Sardines…you wait until found, then the person who finds you has to hide with you. After a while, the hardest thing was trying not to laugh (or keeping the person with you from laughing). But that was half the fun. And then more and more people try to squish into the hiding spot and stay quiet enough to keep from being found.

After their blank stares, I suddenly felt old or something. It was like I’d said I could buy a hamburger for a nickel back when I was young. Or that I remembered back when it was horses, and not cars that roamed main street. But, then it got me thinking of the wealth of great games that are out there.

So, we’ll be resurrecting fun, old game ideas from time to time and posting them here. Some of these may be related to Flibbix in some way, or maybe they won’t be. Almost anything can be rolled into Flibbix if you want (land on Custom Tile and you have to play one quick round of Sardines). But either way, it’s worth digging up some forgotten gems. And Sardines seems like a great place to start. So without further ado:

How to Play Sardines

Players: You’ll need at least 4 players. The more, the better.

How to Play:

1. Choose a person to be the “Sardine” (to hide). Everyone starts in one room.
2. The Sardine leaves to go find a hiding spot while everyone counts to a nice, high number (give it 50 or so).
3. Once the group is done counting, players split up and try to find the Sardine.
4. The first person who finds the Sardine hides in the same spot as the Sardine.
5. The next player who finds the first two players, hides with them as well.
6. Repeat this until the last player finds everyone else hiding together.
7. For the next round, the person who found the Sardine first gets to be the sardine.

Tips: It’s best to play in a place that has hiding spots large enough for a few people to hide together. And, you’ll want to search alone, if possible. Half the fun of the game is finding the other players without having others know you found them.

Have fun playing! If you have other forgotten game gems that we should highlight, drop a note in the comments.

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Cards for your Board Game –

This is the third in our series of how to make a board game. While you can use some of these concepts to make your own board game out of cardboard or paper, making a game with Flibbix is easier and gives you a lot more opportunity to change and “tweak” things later. This makes it easier to experiment and make a board game that works well and is really fun to play.

In our first post, we covered making or building a game board with Flibbix tiles. In our second post, we talked about making rules for your board game. Here, we look at using cards in your board game.

Flibbix comes with 40 cards that you can use with your board game. You can use all, or just some, of the cards to change how your game plays. There are different types of cards that are used for (you guessed it) different things:

Even more cool are Flibbix Custom Cards™. These can be anything you want. They could be an action like one of those above, or anything you can imagine. Just put your “action” for the card on your rule sheet before beginning your game:

Here are some that people came up with in games we played recently:

If you want to create cards for your own custom board game, you might want to try experimenting with Flibbix and Custom Cards first. It gives you a chance to try out your creations. We love being creative and making fun stuff. We think Flibbix is the easiest and best way for most people to make their own games, but you can also try making board game cards out of paper or blank business card templates from an office supply store, too.

The important thing is having fun, playing with others, and getting a chance to be creative.

In our next post, we’ll look at game play.

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Making Rules –

In our last post, we looked at making a game board with Flibbix, the first in our series of how to make a board game. In this post, we’ll look at making rules.

With Flibbix, you can easily make your own board game rules, even if it’s your first time. The How to Play sheet and Game Guide that come with Flibbix will get you going right away, but here’s how it works if haven’t had a chance to play yet.

If you try making a board game from scratch (by drawing on paper or cardboard, for example), it can be pretty difficult to design a game board and make rules. Flibbix gives you tools to easily “build” your own board game. Rather than start from scratch, you have building blocks to make your game board and rules. This lets you make a game easily—and one that’s different every time you play—while sparing you from the more difficult parts of the game design process.

Now, we love designing games from scratch, too, and would encourage everyone to try it, but Flibbix makes it possible for everyone (ages 7 and up, that is) to do it quickly and easily. And to make a game that’s a lot more dynamic than traditional “static” board games. It’s a lot less work, and a lot more fun.

Making your own rules

Flibbix comes with Make your own Rules™ sheets. These let you make rules for your game quickly and easily…mostly by checking off boxes on the rule sheet. There are a few places you can write in rules or actions, too. But, for your first few games, just write in a simple action, like Move Ahead 5, and later try more elaborate rules or actions.

So, who makes the rules? The best way is to have all the players in the game agree on what rules they want, and choose one person to fill out the rule sheet. But, you can also have one person build the game board, and another choose rules. Next game, switch. It’s really up to you. On a side note, having players (especially kids) make and agree on rules before they play a game really cuts down on arguments over rules later. That’s something really unique about Flibbix.

What’s on the Rule Sheet?

This is a look at each section of the Flibbix Make your own Rules sheets, so you can understand what each one does.

1st Player Is…

Here you choose who goes first when playing your game. If you want, you can “spin” instead of rolling by using yourself as a spinner. The Human Spinner™ card shows you how.

Play Order is…

Here you choose the play order for the game. For example, does it go from youngest to oldest or clockwise?

Opponent on Card/Tile Means…

Some cards or tiles in the game mention an “Opponent.” For example, Switch with Opponent, or Zap Opponent Back 5. This rule is to choose who that is. Is it the “Opponent” in the lead? Or does the person that drew the card or landed on the tile get to choose?

Landing on Another Player…

Does anything special happen when two players land on the same space? You get to decide.

On “Jump to” Color Space…

There are a few special color space tiles in the game, and tiles or cards that let you jump directly to those spaces. There may be more than one of those same color spaces in your game board design. If so, which Red Space tile do you jump to when you land on Jump to Red Space?

To Win:

Ever been a few spaces from the Finish in a game, rolled a six, but couldn’t win because the rules call for an exact roll? If you like that, check “Exact Roll Required on Finish.” Otherwise, choose “Exact Roll or Higher…” and you can win on any roll that gets you to Finish—even if you roll higher than the number of spaces between you and Finish.

Actions for Custom Tile™ and Custom Card™

Choose what happens when someone lands on a Custom Tile or draws a Custom Card. Use a favorite from the board, like Tile Swap. Or make up any actions you and the other players like. Here are a few ideas:

Custom Rule™:

If you like, you can make up one custom game rule on your Make your own Rules sheet. Put it in the “Custom Rule” section. Here are a few ideas:

 
You can find example Make your own Rules sheets and rule ideas on the Flibbix Rule Roundup page. You can also check out our last post “How to Make a Board Game: Part One – Make a Game Board” In our next post, we’ll look at Flibbix cards.

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Make a Game Board –

Ever wondered how to make a board game? It’s easier than you think to make a game, or build a board game. All you need is Flibbix™ and a sense of fun. You could also try making a game by drawing on paper or cardboard, but it’s tough to make one that plays well. You’re also stuck with one design and won’t be able to “tweak” or improve game play since it’s set in stone (well, drawn on paper).

Flibbix is a better option for most people. It’s easier, more flexible, and a lot more fun. If you’re looking for a super quick intro, the How to Play Flibbix page shows you in a few seconds how to build and play your own board game.

The Game Guide and How to Play sheet that come with Flibbix are great "how-to" resources, but for those who don’t yet have Flibbix, here’s more detail on how you make your own game. We’ll start with building your own custom game board and will follow up with later posts on making rules and playing.

Building your game board…

Flibbix tiles are big and easy to use. Each tile has two magnets embedded inside. Magnets are injection molded inside tile inserts, and tiles are sonic-welded for extra safety.

Just put two tiles near each other so the red and green sides of the tiles are near each other and tiles will pull together and connect with a satisfying "snap."

How do I design my own game board? Well, you can just experiment with Flibbix since you can always rearrange your game board tiles later, but it’s also fun to plan out your game while you’re building it. You probably don’t want to put a Move Ahead 5 tile five behind a Move Back 5 tile, or you’ll end up getting players stuck.

Tiles are double-sided, so you get to choose which side to face up. Do you like to have lots of tiles that move players forward (like Fast Lane™, Move Ahead, Extra Turn), slow things down (Slow Lane™, Move Back, Lose a Turn), or a mixture? Usually, tiles have opposite actions on opposite sides of the tile, like Extra Turn on the opposite side of Lose a Turn, or Move Ahead vs. Move Back.

There are tiles that let you mix up the game board while you’re playing (Tile Swap™, Tile Flip™, Super Swap™, Super Flip™). Some tiles move you from place to place (Switch with Opponent, Jump to Red, Jump to Green). Some tiles let you draw Flibbix cards, and there’s even a Custom Tile™, which can be whatever you want it to be. More on that next week

You can choose the shape of your game, too…a rectangle, zig zag, letter-shape, straight line…whatever you want. There are ideas on the Board Blender page. Build a game board on the floor, a table, wherever.

You can turn the direction of your game left or right using turn tiles. Just flip over a turn tile to choose which way it sends game play.

Basically, it’s super easy to build your first board game with Flibbix, and it only takes a few minutes. Over time, you’ll learn fun tricks to make your games more challenging, exciting, or crazy. Every player (and group of players) is different, so you’ll end up with games that are as unique as the mix of people playing the game.

So, who makes the game? Usually, all of the players collaborate on building a game board the way they like, but you can designate one "builder" if you prefer. You can also deal out tiles to all players (like playing cards) and let people take turns placing the tiles they’ve been given. Or, to make things more random, you can shuffle and stack tiles, and place them in the order they’re drawn. There are as many ways to build Flibbix game boards as there are possible Flibbix game board designs.

In our next post, we cover rules. Making your own Flibbix rules is as easy as building your own game board, thanks to the Flibbix Make your own Rules™ sheets.

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During a trip to Northwest Trek, we saw this great Porcupine who would give random dramatic looks and then dance. Pretty funny stuff.

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In keeping with last week’s “Funny Find” post, here’s another strange thing we happened to see. We’re bending the rules already…it’s not “funny” in a “makes-you-laugh” sort of way, but in a “that’s unusual” sort of way. Either way, it’s still worth posting.

The photo is of a cloud that looks remarkably like a mouse. The cloud looked even more mouse-like before the photo, believe it or not, but in the few seconds it took to grab a camera, the wind changed the cloud a bit. It’s still a pretty strong likeness, though.

If you’re wondering what a mouse cloud has to do with toys & games, well the cloud brought back a flashback of a rubber mouse toy I had when I was a kid. Or maybe it was the cat’s toy that I’d snagged? Ah, nostalgia! Now, you can even get high-tech mouse toys (like this), but there was something so fun and reliable about a toy that was kid and imagination powered, and that didn’t break the first day. Also, see last week’s post for more info. It’s all about noticing things and inspiration…

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Flibbix was featured in the Washington Post’s online recap of Toy Fair goodies. See the Merillian press page for a link to the Washington Post’s “Ready to Play” slideshow highlighting Flibbix.

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We’ll be at the Western Toy & Hobby Representatives Association Show in Pomona, CA from March 8-11. If you’ll be at the show, stop by to see Flibbix in-person. We’ll be there taking one for the team…braving blue skies and mid-70s temperatures.

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