Edwin Wong :: Think 07-02 :: Top 5 Games For People With Shaky Hands!

Do your hands shake uncontrollably? Well, before you start worrying if you have Parkinson’s disease, you should know that its quite normal for our hands to shake very, very slightly all the time while we are awake, due to tiny muscle fibers in our hands and arms constantly contracting and relaxing at random!

According to doctors, here are some common causes for your “tremors”:
* Anxiety.
* Low blood sugar.
* Excessive coffee and tea.

The cure? Here are the top 5 games that anyone with shaky hands should play after work (when you are less anxious), accompanied by low-sugar snacks and soft drinks with no caffeine! We guarantee that your steady hands will leave your opponents shaking instead!

1. Arbos (M+A Spiele). A 2000 award winner, Arbos is indeed a game you would fall in love with at first sight! A lovely (made-in-Germany) tree stump and truck is all that lie in the middle of the table and each player starts with an equal amount of branches and leaves. Each turn, using only one hand, players must place either a branch or leaf onto the tree. Sounds easy? Not when the base (stump) of the tree is not level! That means each time a branch/leaf is added onto the tree, the whole tree sways! If a player causes any piece to fall off, they have to keep them as a penalty. The first player to successfully place all his/her pieces, wins! RM145, or you can sway for free at MySciFiFan Outpost Café, 2nd Floor, Cineleisure Mall, Mutiara Damansara (6012-316 2450)!

2. Villa Paletti (Zoch). The Villa Paletti is a heart-warming story of how one great grandfather had a dream to build a castle into the sky. Sadly, he never managed to build past the first level. Now, several generations later, the players decide to fulfill his dream. Perfect, except for the fact that you have no money! Not to be undeterred, the players come up with a brilliant idea - to remove as many of the existing pillars, and reuse them to build the higher floors! Watch engineering at its best as players carefully remove existing pillars and stack them to build higher floors - the higher, the more points! But alas, there is always going to be someone who will defy the science of balance, and topples the whole building! RM169, or drop by Toybox, 43A, Jalan 20/16, Petaling Jaya, Selangor (6012-267 5003) to try your hand at this construction.

3. Hamsterrolle (Zoch). Finally, you can stop wondering what it’s like to be a hamster in an exercise wheel! In this wonderful piece of German craftsmanship, each player starts with seven wooden pieces of various colors and sizes, and each turn, they try to place one piece within the wheel. This usually causes the wheel to “roll”, and should any piece fall out, they must be taken back as a penalty. The first player to rid all his/her pieces wins! RM225, or get the wheel rolling at Mage Café, 32 Jalan SS22/21, Petaling Jaya, Selangor (6012-331 5777).

4. Gulo Gulo (Zoch). Here’s a really cute game that females adore! Each player is a Gulo, or wolverine, trying to rescue a baby Gulo, caught by the swamp vulture whose eggs it was trying to steal. Unfortunately for baby Gulo, all the adult Gulos are distracted by all the delicious swamp vulture eggs, and it has to wait very, very patiently as the adults constantly trip the very, very sensitive “egg alarm” rigged by the vulture to scare off the pesky Gulos! There is a nice wooden bowl filled with multicolored swamp vulture eggs of various sizes (think M&Ms!), into which a long thin stick is inserted, serving as the alarm. The aim of the game is to try to pull eggs of a particular color without setting off the alarm, or knocking any eggs out of the bowl - which will send your Gulo backward! RM169, online from http://web.mac.com/imagine_newszine.

5. Halli Galli (Amigospiele). Here’s a lively party game where you need quick eyes and fast hands, that is also great therapy for shaky hands! Cards, depicting various fruit, are evenly distributed among players. Each turn, players turn up the top card in their deck. Anytime there are a total of five of the same kind of fruit showing, the first player to ring (more like slam!) the bell in the middle of the table wins all the cards! The winner is the player who wins all the cards from the other players! RM75 from York House, 2nd Floor, Bangsar Shopping Center, KL (603-2287 8133).

Not only are these games the perfect prescription for shaky hands, they also cure lonely nights and provide a great way for family and friends to spend quality time together!

Next week: Top 5 Games… Your Gambling Grandma Will Love!

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