I meant to write up a little more about Pack O Game, but with Gen Con I just plain ran out of time. But you haven’t yet—there’s still one more day to back Chris Handy’s Kickstarter project about little tiny games!
Pack O Game is a set of small card-based games. Each one is the size of a pack of gum, and you can pledge for any of them for $6 each. However, if you get the whole set (at $24), you’re going to end up with 7 games—potentially more, if the stretch goal is hit. There’s a $20 add-on for the POD, a nice zippered case that holds 7 of the games in a portable pouch, and if the project hits 360 PODs sold, it unlocks yet another game as a stretch goal.
UPDATE: The POD Stretch goal has been hit, so that’s 8 games for $24 now!
The games are all pretty different from each other, with different complexity levels and number of players. Despite their tiny size, some of them are pretty hefty games; most are rated at 8 and up, with a few that are 10 and up, and I’d agree with that at least on the games that I’ve tried out myself.
FLY, one of the lighter games, is sort of like Flowerfall with set collection. You drop the flyswatter onto the picnic table made up of cards, hoping to cover up flies. At the end of the game, you get points for having flies of the same color or the same symbol, so it requires a combination of dexterity and planning.
TKO is a two-player boxing game with simultaneous selection. You and your opponent secretly choose between four actions: uppercut, head block, body blow, body block. You get points for landing punches or successfully blocking punches, but you’re also trying to score enough points on one of those meters. There are several different boxer characters with different starting numbers, so it’s not entirely symmetrical matches, which may steer you or your opponent toward certain choices.
GEM is the one that my kids kept wanting to try, but it’s one of the more difficult games. It’s a bidding game where you try to get the most valuable gems (and the most gems of a type). What’s interesting is the way that you can leverage the value of gems you own in order to bid on others, and then pay to buy them back. Tricky, but definitely worth another try with some more experienced players, I think.
That’s just three of the games—there are a whole bunch of them, and each of them really warrants its own review. If you like tiny games that you can pop in your pocket for a quick play during a lunch break or on a trip, take a look at the Pack O Game Kickstarter! At the current rate, it’s less than $3.50 a game if you get the whole set (or only $6 a game if you get the POD, too)!
Disclosure: GeekDad received samples of some of the Pack O Games for review.
