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CURRENT
Toy Fair Spielwarenmesse Nuremberg, 2020
Back in the Days
Even though only a few weeks have passed since the International Toy Fair in Nuremberg, it seems to be ages ago, since life has changed severely since then. However, even back in early February, some people already wore masks in halls that were primarily occupied by Asian exhibitors, and a few booths even remained empty. But other than that, the usual spring offerings of new games were presented at the fair – with few companies thinking, of course, that there would turn out to be much fewer customers in the traditional retail sector for the immediate future.
the old game to get in the lead position so that you can get rid of low values. The options for the manipulation of values are clever: Whereas you add 1 per chip to a green card, you add the card value to a purple card, i.e., the value is actually doubled. It might take some getting used to that a “1” can in fact mean “5x2,” but eventually, even those who are poor in arithmetic can manage. Subtle tactics and good judgment skills show to advan- tage, especially if you play with the min- imum number of three players. An addic- tive game!
Since Skyjo came out, every card game publisher would obviously like to enhance his product line with a golf variant (see sb 7/2019). Haim Shafir, the author of Halli Galli, didn’t consider himself too good for adding another nuance to the traditional point-minimizing of one’s own display. Biber Gang – to be con- sistent, set in the company’s own Biber series – makes do with a card display of
Abacusspiele
Yes, this actually is an Abacus game. After Team3, released last fall, the company has obviously developed a taste for that kind of game: Fringers once again revolves around cooperative action. Here, you play with others against time, putting colored rings on your neighbor’s hand – and it gets even better: Eventually, the rings in five colors are supposed to be on the right fingers, and to this end, everybody has to fulfill the objective card in the middle of the table, i.e., to have the rings on his hand arranged in the order depicted on the card. To top it all off, a sand timer is running, and if it can’t be turned over in time, the game is over and all players lose. Therefore, look at the objective card, hold your own right hand with the rings towards the middle, use your left hand to pass one of your own rings to your left neighbor and put it on one of his fingers, as requested. At the same time, commu- nicate with your right neighbor, so that he puts the desired ring from his hand on the desired finger of your hand, while he might be busy talking with his right neighbor. And keep an eye on the sand timer all the time. Yeah, sure! Up to ten finger-ringers can participate. Once a player has fulfilled the required combi- nation on his hand, he quits the game. Only the last three players have to keep playing until all of them have fulfilled the objective card.
The two Danish authors are convinced that the degree of difficulty can even be increased. There are objective cards that require players putting two – and sometimes even three – rings in the right order on one finger. And other times, one of the fingers has to remain empty. So there is a lot to sort out, since initially, you simply stick your right hand into the cloth bag and, without looking into the
bag, put five rings on your fingers. And then: hands towards the middle of the table, and communicate in coordination, please! -sd/sbw
Amigo
In a game of Karrierepoker, who hasn’t often been annoyed if his own cards don’t fit well? Chip it promises a remedy: Whereas the objective – to get rid of one’s hand cards – has remained the same, now everybody operates with number
chips in order to manipulate the values of the cards he has played. The amazing thing is that you may take any number of chips from the supply. The catch is that you have to keep the chips you have used, and that you can win the game only after you have gotten rid of them later on. To this end, you can pass when it’s your turn, which allows you to return two chips to the supply. Unlike in the original game, players have several turns per round, until nobody can exceed the just-played card. Here it is even more important than in
FRINGERS: Putting on rings in cooperation
two rows and four columns. Here, players don’t clear away columns with identical values; these cards remain in place and score zero points, unless you have multi- ple cards of the same value, which then scores 10 to 20 points. Only four cards show a beaver; they serve as wild cards, and in some cases, the beaver can even “swim” and serve again as a wild card somewhere else. The player who can make use of it is very pleased about that, of course, whereas the others look glum. It is unlikely that this title will be any com-
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