When we started on the Box of Making back in 2017, one of the few things we knew for certain is that some of our box subscribers were going to be gaming geeks — people who love to play games -- video and otherwise. That’s not a bad thing. Our geeky friends are some of the neatest people. If you fit into that category, you may not know about the cool games and game accessories we have made. Since our latest Box of Making has two mechanical scorekeepers in it as the project, I thought I’d use that as an excuse to tell you about some of the other fun games and toys we have invented and it’s a pretty respectable list. We have:
Geared Jigsaw Puzzle from January of 2018 - This one was inspired by Valentine’s Day and has a layer of gears that sit on top of the finished puzzle. The jigsaw itself is pretty challenging and you have to put it all together right if you want the gears on top to fit.
A reconfigurable marble maze called the “Secret Labyrinth” that we invented in July of 2018. It means you can make an always-changing puzzle.
For that same July 2018 box, we also created something we called Twist-a-Maze. This is a marble roller game, but this one requires balance and smarts and it is reconfigurable as well, so you can make it as hard or easy as you like. Any time we have this one in the booth at a show people love it.
In March of 2019, we included 3 separate games.
First a tangrams board. If you do tangrams you can do them in style with these fun pieces with a layer of geared artwork to decorate on top. None of those boring colors for you.
The second is a single-layer bb maze we called the "Mystery Labyrinth". It’s pretty simple, except that part of the maze is covered with wood. It’s easy if you know how it is built.
Finally, we put in a kit for StrataGears our own gear game. You can get this one either as a kit or pre-built. If you’ve seen it or played it you know how much fun it is. This challenging game lets you compete against your neighbor to see who can put the last working gear on the board. It’s pretty amazing if we do say so ourselves.
The last game box for Volume One was in November of 2020 and it had 2 fun games in it.
Maze Roller is a three-layer bb maze with a hidden middle layer. If you know how it works it is not too hard, but if you weren’t the one to build it, it can be a bit of a challenge.
The Marble Jumper which gives you two different marble solitaire games to play along with all the marbles. After StrataGears, this one is my favorite and it will give you hours of solo fun.
When we launched Volume 2 of the box we wanted to do a couple of fun projects for the geeks and gamers so our September 2022 box has a pair of mechanical counters in it. These scorekeepers let you count up to 100 and are the perfect companion for a host of interesting games.