The show afforded me my first opportunity to play with Squashed—a short demo, mind you, but the quality of the product looked just as good as the game design is smart. Not only is the game 3D but play, in a sense, takes on an additional dimension as well. As players move their pawns up and around the sides of the cube, they may also at times flip that 3D game board to squash (eliminate) the pawns of their opponents. The person with the last pawn remaining in play is the winner.

Another new game being demoed by Plasmart was Drop Shot. This one pairs up a simple race-to-the-top game with a Pachinko-like device that may randomly knock a player’s marble back down the track. However, the die that’s rolled for movement also has one face with a bar. When that bar is rolled, a player may place one of three gates anywhere in the race track, either in front of an opponent to block their way, or behind himself to limit how far back he may fall.

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The brainchild of two-time ChiTAG Young Inventor Challenge winner, Nick Metzler, Squashed is a three-dimensional board game played around a cube. Each player starts with four peg-like pawns that fit in holes on the sides of the cube. Players then roll a die to to move their pawns up and around the cube. If along the way they jump or land on the pawn of another player, that pawn gets squashed through the hole and out of the game.

Even better, when a player is able to land his pawn next to the king piece on the top of the cube, he can turn the cube in any direction and squash all the pieces on one side.

The last pawn standing is the winner.

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