The summer is over and with school starting again it’s important for us to give a big shout out to our Store of the Month for September: Kidstop in Scottsdale, Arizona. Our sales rep Nicolas chose them because they are one of our best customers, they display games very well, and they have a super-friendly staff! This time, I had the pleasure of speaking to the Kidstop manager, Kate, about how she got Kidstop started. Kidstop started in 1999, but before Kidstop ever became a store, Kate was a Regional Manager for JL Hammetts, a company that sold education supplies to teachers. She would cover half the country and help her clients manage their stores. In her adventures, she fell in love with toys. She learned that many teachers also loved to use toys in education, so she decided to open a store for toys and teaching supplies. She was inspired to make learning fun for children, and thus named her store. Of course, as the world of business would have it, teachers didn’t come flocking to her store, but parents did! She found more parents buying toys than teachers buying supplies. Finally, with the help from the Good Toy Group, Kate was finally able to convert her education store to a specialty toy and book store!
Kate and Macguire
But how and when did Blue Orange get involved in this fabulous establishment? Actually, Blue Orange and Kidstop have been partners from the start of each other’s beginnings. Kidstop was started in 1999, just as our president Julien was on the road selling Gobblet to our very first customers. Kate remembered meeting Julien in the “pre-diapers era” at New York Toy Fair. She immediately fell in love with Gobblet. Of course, Gobblet isn’t the only Blue Orange game she fell in love with. She still has one of our oldest wooden games Ringgz, a game where you win territories with rings. Since Toy Fair, Kidstop has been buying games and prospering in their community
6990 East Shea Blvd Suite #103, Scottsdale, AZ
Kate was only too happy to talk about her customers during our interview. She loves having a history with everyone who visits her store and watching regulars grown from children to parents. She actually started Babystop, a furniture store for new parents, when she saw some of her long time customers were having children of their own. She’s also been hiring a few of the customers she’s seen grow up. She mentioned that the stable community was a nice change of pace from her previous job. There she would speak with clients, but she couldn’t see the impact she had on that person’s life. Now in her store she can see what she brings to a whole community.
6990 E Shea Blvd, Suite #108, Scottsdale, AZ
The best advice Kate can give to new store owners is to “have an open mind on business” because “passion and heart only take you so far.” While Kate loves toys and her community, she was still surprised to find how many obstacles she encountered when she started her own business. When she was first starting out, she thought managing a store would be an easy switch from managing hundreds of buyers. However she didn’t account for the new corporate rules she would have to follow and the payrolls she’d have to account for.
Regardless, Kate has done incredibly well with her store, and we are so proud to announce Kidstop as September’s store of the month. We can’t wait to see the great work she will continue to do. Please check out the store’s website or visit them in person in Scottsdale, Arizona at 6990 East Shea Blvd Suite #103. For families with very young gamers visit Babystop at 6990 East Shea Blvd, Suite #108. Congratulations again for winning September’s Store of the Month!
[box]What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?
Spoiler alert: The answer is mankind.[/box]This riddle is centuries old and dates back to the Ancient Grecian legend of Oedipus Rex, who rescues the city of Thebes from the Sphynx by answering this riddle. Riddles and brain teasers such as this have always been around, varying between culture and country. In his article, Marcel Danesi mentions how the brainteasers we are familiar with have universal trends. The concept of the riddle is the same, but the subjects and the narrative change.
Still this begs the questions: why are brainteasers so attractive universally? What possible benefit could people have from teasing their mind?
Actually, teasing your brain is great for long term mental health. Danesi describes brain teasers as an opportunity to expand problem solving skills and think outside of the box. Riddles and brain teasers compel the solver to creatively work through the problem and think of novel solutions. In an article from The Washington Post, Shanker Vedantam reported a study in which researchers took four groups of participants and trained three of them in different fields of mental cognition: memory, reasoning, speed. The remaining group was left as a control and was not trained. There were ten training sessions for each group. Each session lasted 75 minutes. The study found that the groups trained in those skills performed significantly better than those in the control group when tested five years after the training. After half a decade, memory-trained participants showed better memory capabilities, speed-trained participants showed faster thinking skills, and those trained in higher reasoning tested better in solving logic puzzles. Training and teasing the human brain in this way can result in similar, if not greater, long term benefits (especially if training starts at a younger age). It’s even fun to tease your brain with puzzles, riddles, and games! Blue Orange has five games with roots in brain twisting riddles.
This game is a perceptual psychologist’s dream! This game thrives off the stroop effect: a psychological phenomenon in brain flexibility. The stroop effect happens when reading colored words. Look at the row below call out the color of the font of each word:
REDYELLOW BLACK PURPLEGREEN BLUE ORANGE BROWN
That wasn’t too hard, was it? Now do the same thing with this next row:
PURPLERED BLACK ORANGE GREEN BROWN BLUE YELLOW
I bet that last one was a little trickier; that’s the stroop effect. It’s hard for our brains to separate the color of the font from what the word says. This is how Color Clash works. You have many tiles with different colored chameleons surrounded by a written color written in colored font. Triple the confusion! The game is played in multiple variations, but the objective is to match tiles by color (be that the color of the chameleon, color of the font, or the written color). This challenge in mental flexibility will boggle your brain with tricky colors.
Pixy Cubes and Crazy Cheese Puzzle work similar to jigsaw puzzles, another mind jumbling mystery in the gaming world.
Pixy Cubes require players to recognize patterns and piece them together with patterned dice. There are three ways to play: memory, speed, and design. In the speed version of the game, players flip challenge cards and try to replicate them as fast as they can with their four colored dice. In memory, players take ten seconds to memorize a challenge card before trying to replicate it. Finally in design, players use all the dice to piece together a design card,or they make up their own designs.
Crazy Cheese Puzzle works in similarly, only there’s no image and the player has to piece together identical looking wood cheese slices to complete the cheese. While the holes look identical, the end result is tricky to achieve without a good eye to spot where the parts match.
Much like jigsaw puzzles, both of these games require the player to piece different parts together. Also like jigsaw puzzles, both of these games work both hemispheres of the brain. The right hemisphere of the brain is known for creative and comprehensive thinking, while the left hemisphere is more logically driven and thinks sequentially. According to Monica Dennis in “Jigsaw Puzzles Benefit the Brain”, piecing together these big pictures can stimulate both halves of the brain: one being holistically creative and the other being sequentially logical. This is little wonder since you have to logically put together a picture or art piece. “Finding the Missing Piece” by Researchers Verdine, Golinkoff, Hirsh-Pasek, and Newcombe also seems to imply that jigsaw puzzles promote spatial understanding in younger children.
So whether you want to mingle with colors in Pixy Cubes or twist your mind around confusing cheese slices in Crazy Cheese, your brain is bound to grow.
Pin Point! is a spot the difference puzzle with a twist. Instead of spotting the difference between two images, the player must compare all the images and eliminate the objects and characters that have a variation. After eliminating all the variations, the player calls out the color of the original object. Here’s an example:
Can you find the original?
On this card we are trying to find the original headphones. We do that by eliminating differences in the other headphones. For example, the red headphones are the only headphones that don’t have the music symbol, so we eliminate those. The green headphones are the only ones missing part of the headset. Eliminate green. The yellow is missing the sound bubble, and the pink is missing the inside of the earmuffs. Get rid of those and that leaves blue as the original!
Now, what part of the brain does this game develop? As a matter of fact, the find the difference games strengthen the brain on a cumulative level. According to Dr. Pascale Michelon in her article “Brain Games: Spot the Difference” these games stimulate all the lobes of the brain. First, when you analyze the image your are working occipital lobe, the part of your brain responsible for processing images. Second, understanding spatially where those images are triggers both the occipital lobe and parietal lobe, the lobe responsible for spatial understanding. Finally, your frontal and temporal lobes exercise working memory, a function of the brain which allows an individual to retain temporary information, when the player looks between the images and tries to remember where the potential differences are.
Pin Point! does this on a bigger scale with 72 challenge cards and multiple ways to exercise that big brain.
Finally, our very own Best Toys for Kids 2016 winner is quite the mental trainer as well. Game reviewers have also remarked how Robert Fraga’s award-winning Dr. Eureka plays a lot like the fabled Tower of Hanoi. When we looked deeper into this age-old conundrum, we learned that the puzzle originates from an Eastern apocalyptic legend. According to this legend, when the world was created, God made a temple that housed three pegs. On one of the pegs are 64 golden discs stacked from largest to smallest. The priests in the temple must take each disc one at a time (gold is very heavy!) and re-stack the discs on the last peg. However, the priests can’t place a larger disc on top of a smaller disc. When the priests complete this task, it’s said that the world will end. Fun fact: it’ll take 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 moves to complete this puzzle, and they have to lug around gold discs. I don’t think that apocalypse is happening any time soon.
A Tower of Hanoi Puzzle.
However, the puzzle makes for a fantastic math problem and an excellent mind bending game. Dr. Eureka functions along similar sequential rules as the fabled Tower of Hanoi. In the game you have to match the colored balls to the card in front of you, without dropping or touching a ball. Unlike the original puzzle, in Dr. Eureka you can flip your test tube over to match the card combination and it won’t take you eternity to complete. However, it’s not a simple drop-them-in and match-them-up challenge. Like what Danesi said, you can’t attack the problem head on. You have to think around the formula and pour your molecules in a different order from what you’d expect.
How fast can you find the formula?
So yes! Your brain appreciates all the love and brain teasing you give it. Whether it’s the growing brain of an 8-year old-child or the mature brain of a gaming parent, riddles and puzzles will work to stimulating and strengthening the mind in the best way possible.
[box]Now here’s a riddle for you: Why did riddle pick on brain?
This summer you sent your kids to summer camps, and I got the pleasure of joining some of them!
Every year when school is out Blue Orange visits camps around the Bay Area for “play days”. Its our way of giving a little something back to the community, and we love exposing kids to screen-less wonder that can be found in a board game.
Let’s break down how it all went:
1,000 kids +15 camps+ over 40 games donated – a few lost game pieces = A sucessful program and one happy intern!
The play days happened at camps all over the Bay Area, in cities like Danville, Mill Valley, Oakland, Berkeley and in Blue Orange’s very own San Francisco. Kids ages 4 to 13 got the chance to play our newest games, as well as some old favorites, at camps that ranged in size from 10 to 350 (!) kids.
For me this was such an amazing opportunity, as I got to see the joy that Blue Orange’s games bring first hand. To watch kids of different ages, (and their counselors!) interact with each other and have fun together gave me such a new perspective on the impact that something as simple as a board game can have.
Check out some snapshots I took during some of my camp visits below!
Me and my trusty game box- it went to all the camps with me this summer!
Campers in Moraga play Fast Flip, Fastrack and Doodle Quest.
Campers in Danville play Gobblet Gobblers, Battle Sheep, Niya and Fastrack.
4 campers enjoy a game of Braverats!
Blue Orange’s Marketing Manager came out to one of the camps to help out. Here she is playing Dr. Eureka with campers in SF’s Sunset District.
The other marketing intern joined me for the SF sunset camp as well!
Visit them at 2236 Lakeside Dr in Lynchburg, Virginia.
As we approach the last month of summer, we have yet another fantastic retailer to present. Give it up for our August Store of the Month, Givens Books & Little Dickens. Our sales rep Julien nominated this store for their originality and their amazing decorations. George and Silvia Givens started Givens Books after renovated a 1930s Gas Station in 1976 and joined with Little Dickens in 1999. Forty years and three moves later, they have graduated to a 16,000 square foot property on four acres of land. Now they have giant pterodactyl dinosaurs and the fabled Jack climbing down the beanstalk in their store and a waterfall and 30 ft train in the yard. One of the store owners, Danny Givens, says, “Its the largest store of its kind in the Southeast with 7,000 square feet of books, 3,500 square feet of toys and 3,500 of teacher supplies along with an indoor cafe and a real working fireplace to read by in the winter time.” What a sweet space!
Danny Givens
I had the pleasure of speaking to Danny about his role in running Givens Books & Little Dickens. His favorite part about managing the store is the people. “I love meeting happy people and trying to make other people’s lives happier and richer with play and learning. I love seeing the look of wonder on people’s faces, especially new customers, when they walk in to see the store for the first time. I love having great employees who are smart and competent!” Of course, Danny also admits it’s nice being his own boss. It upsets Danny to know that there are still people out there who don’t have access to games or basic learning supplies and can’t reach their full potential because they don’t have the resources.
Students playing Super Genius
In early July, Danny took five Blue Orange games with him to a school in Haiti for ten days. The games were a huge hit because of their language neutrality, quick-to-learn rules, fast playtime, and high learning value. He loved seeing how the kids were learned by having fun and playing games rather than through a disciplined lesson. He was struck by the extreme patience and the nature of generosity in the Haitian culture. One famous proverb he remembered was “Cooked food has no owner.” Such lessons can help many retailers realize the true gift they have in sharing games or the value of patience in stressful store crises.
The best advice that Danny can give to future store owners is to expect to spend a lot more hours and a lot more money than suspected. It takes great effort to push a business in the right direction and get it rolling down the right path. Danny remembers being a perfectionist himself when he started running the store.
Wow! Look at that space!
When it comes to Blue Orange, Danny is thrilled to work with Julien. Ever since day one, Julien was enthusiastic and clear as he demonstrated the games to Danny’s staff so they could show them off in the store. Danny especially loves Gobblet Gobblers, but lately he’s taken a new interest in Top That! and our ASTRA award winner Dr. Eureka. He predicts that those two will sell well in the coming year.
We are so happy to see what Givens Books & Little Dickens has done with our games. We are proud to award them August Store of the Month, and we hope that they continue to teach children and put smiles on others as their business prospers. Congratulations! Check out the Givens Books & Little Dickens site or visit them at 2236 Lakeside Dr in Lynchburg, Virginia.
This weekend, Blue Orange is holding a giveaway to help with your next summer sleepover bash! We will be giving away a copy of Sold Out!with 10 sleepover goody bags to our lucky winner. But first, we need to know the absolute best ideas every parent needs to hold the best sleepover party for their young guests!
Photo by Mandy Roberson at http://www.mommasociety.com/
How will they sleep? In style of course! Prep a no-hassle, no-sew, and easy set-up tent for your the slumbering party-goers!
What you’ll need:
a. 3 yards of canvas or outdoor fabric (try Hancock Fabrics or Joanne’s)
b. Tape measure
c. 1 Roll of Stitch Witchery
d. Iron
e. Drill with 3/4″ bit
f. 3- 3/4″ width 48″ length wooden dowels
g. 4- 1″x1.5″x48″ pieces of wood boarding
h. Scissors
Picture by Cathy Attix at http://ilovetocreateblog.blogspot.com
What you’ll need:
a. 2-10 Energetic Party Guests
b. A Wide Room
c. Blue Orange Game’s Sold Out!
Make sure to like our facebook page and tell us what summer party ideas you have for a chance to win a copy of Sold Out! and 10 goody bags! Check out our gallery for more Sold Out! fun.
Gen Con is just around the corner, and Blue Orange Games has two exciting new games debuting at the convention: Goons of New York 1901 & Vikings on Board.
the Goons of New York 1901 is a promotional expansion pack for New York 1901, made in collaboration with the kids at the Brooklyn Game Lab as part of a months long game jam they did with over 500 submissions. You can read all about how the kids made the game in this article from BGL founder Robert Hewitt: https://boardgamegeek.com/designer-diary-goons-new-york-1901
Goons of New York will be free with purchase of the base game at the convention, or $5 on its own. And, if the feedback is positive, we will release it to a wider audience later in the year. If you are interested in learning more about the BGL promo, email us at pr@blueorangegames.com for more information.
Vikings on Board is a worker placement game from Charles Chevallier (Abyss, Masques, Wakanda). The game includes 39 beautiful 3D ship pieces that come fully assembled in the box. Learn how to play the game here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnPzI1AQv2c
Sales of Vikings on Board will be limited to 50 copies per day. (200 early-access units being flown into the show before its retail release in stores in September). Additionally, anyone who buys the game at the show will also receive a set of upgraded components free with purchase.
Each year the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association organizes a Convention for manufacturers and retailers to meet. ASTRA is the largest association for companies in the toy and children’s products arenas, and aside from providing outstanding support for the industry, every year they review and judge games for their Best Toys for Kids awards. We were very happy to find out that four of our games Top That!, Kaboom, Vroom Vroom, andDr. Eureka were finalists for the ASTRA Best Toys for Kids 2016 Awards. Yesterday, after collecting thousands of votes from retailers all over the country, ASTRA announced Dr. Eureka as the winner in its category!
June 5th through June 8th, our sales team took a trip east to the ASTRA Marketplace in Denver, CO. We always treasure our time with our retailers, and this year was no different. We especially enjoyed showing off five great new games. They are still in the making, but they’ll be coming soon to the market before the holidays. Read more below about those clever Blue Orange findings. But unlike our releases during Toy Fair, you might find that these games are for the more mature crowd and jammed with strategy, abstract though, and some good old fibbing.
Six Making
[box]This Gobblet-like game was welcomed by retailers as a fantastic mix of chess and checkers.[/box]
Chess players loved breaking their brains over this new wooden strategy game at ASTRA. The height of the tower defines the move set that tower can take. A one-piece tower makes a pawn, two pieces make a rook, three make a knight, four a bishop, five a queen, and six you win the game! The color at the top shows which player controls that tower. There are also special pieces that can add more fun and complexity to the game. Our sales reps and retailors loved battling out their wits in this new twist on a strategy game.
Cup of Bluff
[box]Everyone enjoyed the bluffing fun in this teen-adult party game![/box]
Our sales reps were hard pressed to put on their poker faces as they tried to bluff it out with visiting shop owners. Cup of Bluff is an uproarious party game with sly looks and some sneaky white lies. The point of the game is to trick your opponents. Roll the dice in your cup of bluff and peak inside to see the number. Then pick your target and say the dice’s true value or lie and pick a different number. If they find the truth, they get the points, but if you trick them, the points are yours!
U-Turn
[box]Players loved the brain teasing conundrum just as much as the game’s colors and affordability.[/box]
This game flexed and folded minds up with complex geometry as players searched tried to latch on shapes to wrap their colors around orange and green dots. U-Turn challenges players to build elaborate and complex structures by three dimensionally surrounding dots to capture them in a two dimensional way so that when you look down at the dot, the color surrounds it. Tricky right? We created awesome 3D sculptures at ASTRA while snapping on pieces to capture dots in this three-dimensional puzzle strategy game.
Vikings on Board
[box]This viking themed game wowed players with it’s elaborate set up and reasonable price.[/box]
Our sales reps set sail against retailers as they battled in this elaborately crafted strategy game. Vikings on Board is a big box, family strategy game in which your objective to set sail on a ship best equipped for the voyage. However, your viking brethren are masters of sabotage and would soon switch the parts on your ship then have you sail out of the harbor. The sales team enjoyed this brilliant battle of wits against the retailers, while the crowd marveled at the 3 dimensional boats and the board’s masterful illustrations.
Boss
[box]The game was applauded for its American style theme and beautiful artwork.[/box]
The Blue Orange crew was twisting their minds over probability and bluff in this test your luck twist on the American mob tale. In the Boss, players bluff, deduct, and push their changes to get the cut of the profit. It’s a game full of hard decisions and sacrifices, where arrest, injury, or even death can endanger any of your gangsters on every job. Tensions where high between our staff and the players as everyone dared probability on their adventure into organized crime.
We are so honored Dr. Eureka won ASTRA’s Best Toys for Kids, and we were thrilled to play these awesome new games with our retailers. Check out what a blast we at at ASTRA Marketplace 2016!
Regardless, Kate has done incredibly well with her store, and we are so proud to announce Kidstop as September’s store of the month. We can’t wait to see the great work she will continue to do. Please check out the store’s website or visit them in person in Scottsdale, Arizona at 6990 East Shea Blvd Suite #103. For families with very young gamers visit Babystop at 6990 East Shea Blvd, Suite #108. Congratulations again for winning September’s Store of the Month!
