Chris Kovac: The 2007 Toronto Toy and Hobby Fair

By Chris Kovac

I attended the 67th Canadian Toy and Hobby Fair held here in Toronto to see whether I could find anything interesting in boardgaming. Distributors and game companies use this trade fair to sell games and children’s toys to various large-scale customers, giving them stock for their stores for the upcoming year. This meant there were lots of plastic toys, scale models, and remote-control models to see. Amidst all the toys, however, I did find some interesting boardgames. Here are the games, with brief comments on each of them:

Bucket Brigade

Kippit

Bucket Brigade, by Reiner Knizia (Face 2 Face Games)

This is the rethemed version of Reiner Knizia’s Honeybears, with a fireman racing up a ladder to the top of a building. Bucket Brigade can play 2-4 players and comes in as a relatively light 10-15 minute filler. The object of the game is to race the various firemen to the top of the ladder on the board; the first player there ends the round and receives a six point bonus. You move firemen by playing move cards in the respective color. (The number of cards and firemen differs depending on the number of players.)

The catch is that you score only for cards in your hand at the end of the game, which means that you have to decide how many cards of which color you wish to play while holding some cards back for scoring. These aren’t hard decisions, but they’re enough to keep the game interesting. Bucket Brigade is a good game to introduce kids or non-gamers to Eurogames.

Kippit, by Torsten Marold (FoxMind Games; Franjos)

This is a two-player wooden dexterity game in which you balance cubes on a wooden seesaw. Each player has the same number of cubes in four different sizes. On a player’s turn, the player can place as many cubes as he wishes on his side of the seesaw until the seesaw tilts or one or more cubes falls off his tower of cubes; either of these actions ends his turn. You can place cubes only on one section of the seesaw at a time. Any cubes that fall off while stacking them are returned to you; any cubes that fall off due to the seesaw tilting are given to your opponent. The object is to get rid of your cubes. I liked the game and think it’s a nice filler for gamers and family/casual gamers alike. A fast and light dexterity game which seems to be popular with boys according to the saleswoman I talked to.

Exago, by Mark Forsyth (Goliath Games)

One of those numerous abstract games put out by Goliath, Exago is a two-to-six-player tic-tac-toe variant played on a hexagonal board with Blokus-like pieces in which you try to get four in a row. On your turn, you place a piece (starting at the center) which must touch a piece already played. If you have played all of your pieces to the board and no one has won, you can pick up a previously played piece and move it. A very short 10-15 minute game which might be of some interest to kids, but I prefer Blokus.

The following are games which I had had explained to me but did not actually play, so I cannot verify how well they would play, although they looked interesting.

Stratagame (clickable)

GridIron Master (clickable)

This is an attempt to make a game that’s heavier than Risk but lighter than Axis and Allies with a World War II theme. Though generally well produced, with plastic pieces a bit substandard by today’s standards but fairly good artwork, this game seems very abstract. You are trying to conquer a certain number of fixed resource markers to win the game. You have ships, infantry, tanks, HQ Units, artillery, and Mechanized Infantry units, with no airpower as far as I could see. You move these units around, occasionally using resource cards to give units special powers. I was not overly impressed as the demonstrater gave a rather weak explanation of the game, but after checking out the website, I’d say that the game seemed too complex for the casual gamer, yet too light for gamers.

GridIron Master, by Brett & Craig Proud, Jordan Sampson, and Paul Morin (GridIron Master)

As the name suggests, this is a football game, and it uses chess moves to simulate the movement of various players on the board. The Quarterback, for example, moves like a King. The object is to maneuver your piece with the ball so it can move into the Goal area and score. A nicely produced game with a wooden board and plastic helmet shaped peg like pieces. The game seems to be well-designed, and interestingly enough it comes in an American Football Edition and a Canadian Football edition with rules specific to each type of game. I think the game seems to be similar to Pizza Box Football and might interest football fans.

Talisman mock-up (clickable)

Ta Yü (clickable)

Some other gaming news I learned at the Fair:

1. The new version of Can’t Stop will be released next month in Canada with revised cover art but with the same components.

2. A new version of Talisman will be released in November with revised components and rules. According to the guys at Lion Rampart, there will be rules to shorten the game with multiple players and the basic game does not end with the player reaching the center; instead he gets some special powers, and the game ends when all players have been eliminated (which could mean a very long game).

3. Ta Yü is now available in a cheaper plastic version from I Love to Play Games. They are not as nice as the original pieces but it cost almost half as less as the original.

4. Die Baumestier von Arkadia by Ravensburger will be carried by Pierre Belvédère in Canada.

Overall I found that board games are still produced and sold in fairly large numbers in Canada, though many are still primarily for kids. I found that the distributors as a whole were quite helpful about demonstrating their games, and I look forward to attending both the Summer and Fall event put on by the Toy Show.

Comments: