Minggu, 12 Desember 2010

Swish Stacks Up

Think Fun 1512 ThinkFun Swish

Think Fun 1512 ThinkFun Swish

I bought this for my nephew - an incredibly intelligent 11 :). I was hoping to have something for us all to do on an extended family get-together besides watch TV and argue. We started playing - the instructions are not that hard to follow and the cards are seriously nice looking - that interested the kid right away. The game is fast-paced - not too much waiting around to get bored, but not like a time pressure game either (that is too much like work for me). No annoying buzzers, bells or whistles. My sulky brother and my mom joined right in and liked it. You could easily modify it for younger kids if you wanted. Although there is a winner for all the competitive people. It is more about the fun of playing and everyone can get some sugar. Very portable, although you couldn't play it on a car or plane I don't think. Great original idea. We come back to this one again and again

Get your Think Fun 1512 ThinkFun Swish Now!

8 komentar:

  1. Swish is created by a company named ThinkFun Inc. This was my first clue that I wasn't in for your typical brainless, draw-a-card-and-match-the-color type of game. I was excited that we'd actually get to use our noggin and really think about our moves! My 12 year old son gets enough brainless activity with video games and the internet, so as a parent, I'm always looking for a way to get him to use his brain while not even realizing it! The great thing about this game is that it can be played alone, or with as many people as you want!

    Swish contains 60 see-through cards. 16 cards are placed on the playing surface for everyone to see. On each card are different colored balls and hoops. The object is to stack between 2 and 12 cards so that each colored ball fits through a hoop of the same color. Here's the tricky part - the cards can be flipped or rotated to make the balls align, BUT you must do it in your head before touching the cards. If you touch the cards and they aren't a match, you're penalized.

    I played with my son and husband. The game started out fairly quickly, as we used the beginner rule that you could only make stacks of two. Once we picked up on it (which we did very quickly) we allowed stacks of any number of cards. This is when it got really difficult. We all really enjoyed the challenge of trying to find matches, and all had a good laugh when someone was so sure they had a good match but didn't quite make it.

    One thing that we had a problem with was picking up the cards. We played on a hard surface, and the cards were so slippery they were nearly impossible to pick up. We were able to fix that easily by putting a kitchen towel under the cards, or I believe playing on carpet would have worked as well. I also loved that it came with a small carrying pouch. So many games take up so much room on the shelf, but Swish really isn't much bigger than a deck of cards and is easily portable - instructions and all. Speaking of instructions, there weren't many. This is one of the easier games that I've played in terms of picking up on it quickly. In fact, my son missed the reading of the rules, so he just watched my husband and me make about 3 matches and was able to join in from there with no problem.

    Swish is a game that will remain dustless on the family's game shelf. I have no doubt that it's a game we will play on a regular basis. It's adult enough that my husband and myself can play it alone, or we can play it as an entire family. I love how versatile it is, and I love that it really does make you think. Our goal now is to start making matches of 4 cards or more, but I have a feeling that may take quite a bit more practice!

    BalasHapus
  2. Swish is an extremely fun game! It always went really fast, and it was great fun for everyone in the family. I'm ten, and I have a seven year old brother and I played it with my parents, too. We even stayed up a little late playing it, it was so fun. It was really easy to learn, but we got a little confused about laying the new cards out. What really made it fun was the figuring out the swishes in your head, and the speed. Additionally, the game is like no other. Overall, it's a great game, but you should get more points for three and four card Swishes. I got this product in exchange for an honest review.

    BalasHapus
  3. I bought this for my nephew - an incredibly intelligent 11 :). I was hoping to have something for us all to do on an extended family get-together besides watch TV and argue. We started playing - the instructions are not that hard to follow and the cards are seriously nice looking - that interested the kid right away. The game is fast-paced - not too much waiting around to get bored, but not like a time pressure game either (that is too much like work for me). No annoying buzzers, bells or whistles. My sulky brother and my mom joined right in and liked it. You could easily modify it for younger kids if you wanted. Although there is a winner for all the competitive people. It is more about the fun of playing and everyone can get some sugar. Very portable, although you couldn't play it on a car or plane I don't think. Great original idea. We come back to this one again and again

    BalasHapus
  4. When I first heard the name of this game I was really excited to play it- the name is so cool! Then when I was able to play it with my mom I had a blast!! I was so excited that I found a 3 card Swish in the first game I played- I even surprised my mom that I found one. I wanted to keep playing again and again but I had to eat dinner. I think this is a great game to play for all ages and I can't wait to teach my friends and other family members. I love Think Fun games!

    BalasHapus
  5. Got a review copy of Swish from Thinkfun. Originally, I thought Swish would be good for my fifth grade class...but then I borrowed it for use with my wife and mother-in-law. Although I had feared it might be too hard to find "matches" and that gameplay might be slow - turns out things go pretty quickly and everyone got hooked. We played in the evening at an "official" game time, but then the game got brought out for breakfast - the sign of a winner. The same thing happened with my students who kept asking me where to get it.

    The cards are fairly attractive and well designed for their purpose. Just the look of the cards got my students intrigued - they look like no other cardgame cards. They are transparent and have only colored hoops and balls that you can see from each side. We have noticed that you need to play on a surface that makes it easy to see colors and the hoop/ball symbols. The cards are a little tricky to pick up from certain surfaces, but my students quickly devised a workaround solution by squeezing the sides of the card to make it bulge and facilitate pickup.

    As I noted above, with a few people playing, game play goes pretty fast. The game builds visual intelligence and pattern recognition as well as math concepts of rotation and reflection as players turn and flip cards to try to match balls with hoops and vice versa. It is very satisfying when you find a match and the fact that others are simultaneously looking for matches makes it pretty competitive. A number of Thinkfun games are solo in nature and I have always thought that an asset, but it is great to see that Thinkfun can make the same kind of puzzly/thinking game and make it work for more than one player. That will really work for many kids, such as my nephew who likes thinking games - especially visual oriented ones - but who is very much into competition.

    Oh...one more thing - the game has a very natural way of extending the challenge by letting you find multipe matches and I have seen some players really gravitate to that extra challenge.

    BalasHapus
  6. As a parent and a teacher, I love SWISH! My 7 year old students love playing this game any time. They even ask to stay in at recess to play. Better yet, two of my students and I read the directions and played. After that, they taught others how to play. It spread like wild fire.This game moves as fast as the players make it move. Because they can play with two, three, or more card matches, everyone can enter the game where they are. Experienced and non-experienced players can play together. Win-win. My 10 year old loves it as much as my 7 year olds for all the same reasons. Every classroom and home needs SWISH!

    BalasHapus
  7. I have played many classic card games through the years with varying degrees of success. These games range from Bridge to Poker. I would even include Old Maid, Crazy 8s and Go Fish when opponents needed age appropriate game play. SWISH has become my latest addiction. The game is all about layering 2, 3, or 4 cards from a field of 16 on the playing surface so that graphic balls and hoops merge over one another when oriented correctly onto each other. The fact that the cards are transparent plastic makes the merge possible when cards are flipped, rotated, and stacked. A player wins the cards with a correct stack. The game winner has the highest card count when all 60 cards are played. SWISH is a true visual and spatial challenge that changes each time the field of 16 cards changes which makes for endless fun. SWISH's recent arrival on the card scene may not qualify it as a classic just yet. But if my experiences with repeat play suggests anything, it will be ranked with other most popular card favorites soon.

    BalasHapus