At the Mensa Mind Games this past weekend in the Virginia suburbs outside Washington, DC, member judges played through and selected the following games as 2017 Mensa Select winners:
Amalgam from Simply Fun—A game in which the players, as wizards, try to collect sets of potion ingredients but have to rely on their memories of the ingredients they’ve already collected.
Around the World in 80 Days from Iello Games—A Spiel des Jahres winner from years ago (Hare & Tortoise), reproduced based on the Jules Verne novel. Players race around the board, moving forward and back as they wish. However, they must carefully plan to arrive back in London with the least amount of cash left in hand.
Clank! from Renegade Game Studio—A dungeon delve fantasy adventure game built on deck-building mechanisms.
Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle from USAopoly—Another deck-building game, this one follows the novels with a series of cooperative games that get more complex and more difficult to beat as they progress.
Imagine from Gamewright—A party game where the giver-of-clues chooses an item from a card and then tries to illustrate the item by combining images and symbols with an overlay of transparent cards.
The most anticipated from USAopoly, Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle ($50), was only at Gen Con in very limited quantities but should be at retail in September. It’s a cooperative deck-building card game developed to be very beginner friendly. The box opens to look like a trunk filled with Harry’s possessions and the cards are packed in boxed for a series of games to introduce the rules in a graduated fashion. In terms of game-play, each person, in the role of one of the Harry Potter characters, gets their own personal starting deck of spell, ally, and item cards but they must work together to defeat the villains.
Also highlighted at the show was the recently delivered Star Trek Panic ($40). This one, another cooperative title, has players defending the starship Enterprise from alien attack while at the same time working to complete a number of missions. It’s a variation on Castle Panic from Fireside Games but has a central Enterprise figure that can turn and also has shields to absorb some of the damage.
Later, USAopoly plans two expansions for Marvel Munchkin, Mystic Mayhem ($20, September) and Cosmic Chaos ($20, December). The former features Dr. Strange and The Defenders, the latter Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova.