Taking a cue from property developers squeezing more out of the area available, Upwords moves a classic word building game vertical! It’s billed as ‘the unique 3-dimensional word building game. Suspiciously like yet another Scrabble extension, I regarded it warily. As it turns out, Upwords from Funskool, is a good find.

PC and internet-based games have always intrigued, but somehow felt of a lesser order for the purist board game worshipper. Admittedly, Othello on the PC is a joy. CD-based Boggle is a multimedia marvel. Even the traditional Monopoly, works on the PC. I dedicate my column to the humbling accessibility of delightful games on Yahoo! Games.

I learnt some time ago that there’s more to Dominoes than merely matching the pips. Tri-Ominos from Pressman Toy Corporation is Dominoes with attitude.

A couple of very efficient enumerators rang the doorbell a few days ago.

Long before Pente. Eons before Gigamic. Checkers was the ultimate simple game of strategy. For some reason, I’ve always felt Checkers is to Chess, as Billiards is to Snooker. There are a few simple moves to learn, and then there’s the simple matter of gaining mastery of the table. Chess is fussy. Checkers is not. Chess anoints

The onward journey on the Shatabdi for an ex-colleague’s momentous wedding was eventful.

Great value board games must be viewed with some suspicion. The prices were reasonable. The ‘Made in China’ label isn’t a bad thing. I’ve often seen marvelously finished games from the world’s factory. But I should have known better. There were 14 titles to choose from. All in identically-sized rectangular cartons. With fold-out play

Harish and Ranjini are enviably settled, into their house in Bangalore. Quixo from Gigamic, or Six from Dr Wood were my first choices as house warming gifts that would promise hours of stimulating game play. Sadly, both recently introduced titles are determinedly out of stock. Walking through one of my favourite book stores, I chanced upon a 15”x1/2” double-sided dart board from Unicorn Products, England, predictably manufactured in China!

Dr Wood is churning them out at a visibly pace! ‘Tribe’ was interesting but takes patience and a bunch of like-minded souls to play.

Reversi from United Toys is still on the shelves. But even its most recent version is positively tacky compared to the far, far better finished Othello from Funskool. The same game, intriguingly marketed under two different