Action / Dexterity

Operation is a dexterity game in which you must extract silly body parts from a hapless patient. In the course of the game you acquire cards which dictate that you must remove a certain piece from the body of the patient. To do this you use a set of tweezers that are attached by wire to the game board. If you are sloppy and touch the metal sides of the hole where the item is located, the patient's pain is indicated by a sudden buzzer and light-up nose. Successful extractions net cash, and the player with the most cash at the end of the game is the winner.

Various editions change the patient and the items to be removed, but the game stays the same in its essence:

Shrek -- just like the classic version, but with Shrek.
Simpsons -- Remove Homer's Bowler's Thumb, Pot Belly, Foot in Mouth, Rubber Neck, Trick Knee, etc.
T-Rex -- excavating bones of a T. Rex
Spiderman 3 -- healing all of Spiderman's ailments
Pit Stop -- manipulating various car parts instead of people-parts

Re-implemented by:

Operation Rescue Kit

NOTE: This is a protected game and requires having a membership to play.

Mouse Trap pits 2-4 players against each other as mice trying to navigate through a complex mousetrap. They build the Rube Goldberg inspired mousetrap as they move their mice across the board. They also try to collect cheese cards, which allow them to move other mice to cheese wheel which is the bait for the trap. Once the mousetrap has been completely constructed, players can attempt to capture each others' mice in it by turning the crank, which activates the mousetrap. If the mousetrap doesn't malfunction, the mouse is captured and out of the game. The winner is the last mouse who avoids being trapped. The main appeal of Mouse Trap is the ridiculously complex contraption that is the mousetrap. Somehow even young children can figure out how to assemble it from the blueprints on the board, and everyone enjoys watching it do its magic.

NOTE: This is a protected game and requires having a membership to play.

This children's game is as much of a toy as it is a game. Each player has a plastic hippo that is arranged around a plastic arena. When you push the tail it will reach its head onto the playing field - perhaps trapping one or more marbles to be pulled back to a private player marble gutter, perhaps just sending marbles bouncing around the playing field.

Some marbles are released onto the playing area; players attempt to get their hippos to eat as many marbles as possible.

On an icy lake, two clans of prehistoric men clash in a match of Kairn, better known as Caveman Curling, this being an ancestor to the modern sport of curling. Players compete as individuals or are grouped into two clans, and they try to land their stones the closest to a target each round. On a player's turn he takes two actions:

• He launches a stone across the ice, flicking it with his finger toward the target on the other end of the game board.

• To improve the positioning of his stone or the chances of it staying in place, he can choose to use either a small or large hammer or a totem. With a hammer, the player moves the stone according to the size of the hammer. As for the totem, the player sets it on top of the stone; if the totem falls off the stone, the player can shoot it again on a later turn.

If your player or clan has one or more stones closer to the center of the target than the other clan, you score points. The first player/clan to collect six points wins.

A note about the different editions.

Caveman Curling (2012)
Kairn (2010)

There are significant production differences between Kairn and Caveman Curling, though the game play is almost identical between the two versions. Kairn (200 copies) was designed and self-published by Daniel Quodbach in 2010. Blackrock Editions and Scorpion Masque produced 1000 copies of Kairn and released it at Essen in 2011. Gryphon Games version of the game has yet to be produced, pending the conclusion of a current Kickstarter campaign that was organized to gauge demand for its version. Caveman Curling is scheduled for mass production in January, 2012, and to be released in late February, 2012. The first and only production copy of the Gryphon version will arrive in the US on December 14, 2011 and a video will be made showing the differences between Kairn and Caveman Curling.