Blink: ( www.otb-games.com )

You see a lot of these types of games all over the place. You wander into a bookstore or a KB Toys or even a Go Gamer and these $5.99 card games are all over the place -- many are fodder and really not worth the time but Blink is the exception, not so much because it’s great card game for adults, but Blink can be used as a wonderful recognition and quick thinking learning tool for a pre-schooler or early grade school student.

Blink is a lightning fast two-player card game (hence the name) that helps kids to think quickly while identifying numbers, shapes, colors, and designs. Each player has a small deck of cards with various shapes and designs on them. There are two target cards set face-up on the table. The players must play a card on one of the targets that match the number of designs, the type of design (a star, tree, circle, etc.) or the color of the design. Players slap these cards down as fast as possible; this is not a turn-based card game -- it's more of a free for all. The winner of the game is the first one to run out of cards. There's no reading involved so it's an ideal game to exercise the brain of a pre-schooler.

A few notes:

When my daughter was in Pre-K I took this game, along with a few others, to "game day". This was a day in which kids brought in games for everyone to play. Blink was an enormous hit. However, at that age a lot of kids' development skills vary a great deal and while one five year old might be quick on the draw in recognizing the patterns and colors, another five year old might stare blankly, getting flustered while their opponent plays card after card.

If your child gets easily flustered when under "pressure" (and Blink can do that due to its frantic nature) you need to go slowly at first, allowing them a chance to see the game more clearly and then speed things up gradually. This helps kids enjoy the game much more as they slowly identify what they need to do.

One caveat: You need to pay attention that the kids are playing properly because it's easy for them to just start slapping cards down without paying attention to whether it is a correct play or not. The other player is so focused on his/her own cards that policing the game becomes the parent's job.

The teachers at Pre-K Game Day asked me about Blink and said they were going to go out and buy several copies due to its educational value. As one teacher told me, "This is a game that really helps kids think. It helps work the brain." I can't think of a better recommendation than that.

Gulo Gulo: ( www.riograndegames.com )

It's a common question: What game should I buy for my kid(s)? There are a lot of standard answers from card games (like Blink) to more traditional classics. However, I'll go as far as to say that if you're a parent of a small child and you don't own a copy of Gulo Gulo then you are doing your kid, and yourself, a disservice.

Granted, the appeal for adults without the kids involved is most likely low but it's a vastly more entertaining game than the usual tripe of Chutes and Ladders, Trouble, and Candyland.

The idea of the game is to grab little wooden eggs out of a bowl without knocking over the pole which the eggs hold in place. You turn over tiles which instruct you as to which colored egg you need. It's a very simple and yet highly addictive game and my daughter was able to grasp the rules at age four without any problems. The cool thing is that just last night she asked to play a game of Gulo Gulo; she's now six years old and in Kindergarten. Two years of staying power for a kid? How rare is that?

As a gamer, it can be hard to find the right kind of game to play with your child. I've played Xbox and Xbox 360 games like LEGO Star wars, which is great fun, as well as an online game called Toontown and both are big hits, but games like Gulo Gulo are, I believe, crucial is helping to form a board game bond which will hopefully last a lifetime.

A big reason why my daughter gets such a kick out of this game is that she's better at it than both her parents. Gulo Gulo is ideal for nimble little fingers which can be used to grab wooden eggs without knocking over the pole. She's amazingly adept at doing this...snagging small green eggs on the bottom that appear impossible to reach--and they are for a grown man. No way can adult fingers do as well as a dexterous six year old.

At her age, she's right on the verge of being able to read without too much help, and she sees us playing more adult games and she wants to join in -- she wants to spend time playing games and she looks forward to more challenging stuff. I 'blame' this behavior on Gulo Gulo. It's simply one of the very best games you can buy to get your child started on the road to enjoying this hobby.

Chicken Cha Cha Cha: ( www.riograndegames.com )

Chicken Cha Cha Cha takes the idea of a basic memory game and turns it into a race; in this case it’s a race to obtain the feathers of rival chickens. There are a slew of children’s memory games on the market and most of them simply involve laying down cards, tiles, etc. and trying to make a match. While Cha Cha is a memory game at its core it adds the element of chasing the other players around the ‘board’ in order to make it seem like more of a game. And for a kid (I’d say from ages three to eight or so) – it works.

The game comes with four large wooden chickens of various colors as well as their corresponding (wooden) feather. The board is made up of 24 thick (as in Gulo Gulo thick) tiles that are arranged in a circle. In the middle of the circle are 12 additional tiles, placed facedown, that match the picture of the tiles that form the outer circle. The components are wonderful. Really top notch.

At the start of the game each chicken (with its tail feather securely in place) is placed on the circle equidistant from all of the other chickens so as ensure no one has an advantage. At this point the game is on.

On each turn, a player turns over a tile from the middle pool in an attempt to match the tile that he/she is currently standing on. If they match, the player keeps going, moving closer and closer to an opponent’s chicken. If they fail to make a match, the turn ends and the next player flips over a tile.

If a chicken gets passed (leaped over in this case) their feather is stolen, although they are not out of the game. Chickens may always take a turn to try to steal back a feather. However, once a chicken obtains every player’s feather, the game ends. It’s a very simple design which is ideal for young children. You can teach them the game in five minutes.

There are a few things to consider:

Every child I have played this with, from my daughter to her legion of cousins, all have enjoyed the game immensely, for the most part, but if you let a group of kids play this together, especially if they’re all in the 3-5 age range, it can take a long time which can lead to frustration and/or boredom depending on the kids in question. A four-player game of Cha Cha can take longer than 20 minutes if the kids keep messing up or if they keep stealing feathers. I’ve seen my share of games come to a premature conclusion because of this. It’s best to have an adult play the game and “take over” if they see the kids getting tired or getting upset. (It can also be funny to the kids when the grown up messes up…not that I’d have any experience with that…)

It’s a great, great game for the first 20 minutes, but if it stretches on past that, it’s easy for a youngster to get bored. However, a group of older kids, around ages 5-7, this is rarely an issue and the game has proven popular with my daughter’s Kindergarten classmates.

PitchCar: (A little tough to find, but I suggest an online retailer such as Thought Hammer )

Of course, not all games need to be brain busters. After a while, a kid just wants to play something simply because it’s fun. PitchCar is that game. This is a racing game that requires each player to flick, or “pitch”, their car around a racetrack. The cars are actually little colored wooden disks. There are many ways in which to flick your car and I have seen several techniques: the over the top flick, the sideways flick, the hard flick, the cautious flick, etc. In all seriousness the game requires practice in order to find the best method that works for you.

The track is made of thick wood and is pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle. In addition, you get plastic rail guards that help keep the cars on the track; the trick is that on most courses there will be open areas so you need to use some planning and some finesse and not just flick the cars as hard as you can because if your car flies off the track you have to go back to where you last pitched it – it’s the equivalent of losing a turn. You also lose a turn if you knock another car off the track. Of course you can play any way you like but the base rules are not meant to be demolition derby. This is more like a professional street race. Along these same lines the cars must slide on the track; they cannot jump (more than two sections) or roll on their side. The game requires some self control in that regard as an over eager pitch can cause you to miss a turn which is a surefire way to lose.

The base game can form a myriad of track designs so the game stays fresh because you can reshape the course after each session. There are expansions available that add all sorts of crazy track variants but the base game is a good enough place to start, and for around $55 is quite expensive in its own right. You’re paying for the components – wood isn’t cheap.

The game supports up to eight players. I’ve played with as few as two and as many as eight and an eight player race is complete and utter chaos…but in a good way. The first few flicks create a traffic jam and going last can be tough to overcome (pole position is determined by a solo lap prior to each race.)

There is one area that can frustrate players, grown ups and children alike: when you connect the track sections, it can leave a ridge which the cars have a tough time sliding over. It helps if you play on a completely flat surface, but these little ridges can make a great pitch end up zooming off the track as it doesn’t take too much to get the disk to fly off kilter. Of course this also adds a little strategy as you can usually tell which track connections might cause problems and you need to plan accordingly – just getting over the rough spots with a safe pitch can be the difference between winning and losing.

PitchCar is a wonderful game for kids (and adults!) because it’s so easy to grasp and requires some dexterity. It’s a shade on the pricey side (particularly if you get the expansions) but the amount of fun you are likely to get from it easily covers the cost.

- William Abner