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Mensa, the organization for intelligent people who might possibly be doing something useful if they weren’t in Mensa [1], is holding its 21st annual Mind Games weekend on April 16-18 in San Diego, CA.
Members and non-members will test this year’s crop of games submitted by publishers with enough cash and interest to do so, and then members’ opinions will be collated and the Mensa Select Game awards awarded. The Mensa award is not taken too seriously by gamers, as Mensa testers tend to award games that are fast to play and have one single abstract hook, but in some cases, a Mensa Select choice will enhance a game’s distributions and sales.
[1] Just kidding. They wouldn’t.
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I’m a member of Mensa, and I think that the Mensa Select criteria are ridiculously skewed. First of all, they only review games sent to them by a publisher. Then they get so little time to test them that a lot of games aren’t even played to the end. Some games are abandoned because they find the rules difficult! In other words, the game better have really simplistic rules and be playable in 30-45 min.
In addition, the fact that they only play the games once (if that) means that they overvalue games with low replayability and dismiss games that take multiple plays before strategies become apparent.
No wonder casual players like the award, it allows them to play simplistic games with low strategic depth and still feel smart about themselves.