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Classic games continue to entertain us all

Date: 12/14/2011

Dec. 12, 2011

By Katelyn Gendron

Assistant Managing Editor

EAST LONGMEADOW — Forget the oversized playing boards with game pieces you’ll inevitably lose; these days all you need are four (or five) electronic tiles to enjoy three classic board games.

Simon Flash and Yahtzee Flash are Hasbro Inc.’s latest additions to the electronic gaming genre after the success of last year’s Scrabble Flash, which was named the 2010 Game of the Year.

The beauty of the Flash games is that they can be played alone or with others (ages 8 and older). There’s far less chance of losing the game pieces as they each come with a plastic carrying case and cost approximately $29.99. In order to make play possible, Hasbro uses a kind of technology called “Wonder-link,” which allows for the game tiles to communicate with one another allowing them to keep score, set timers and more, eliminating the need for those paper scorecards or plastic hourglasses.

Scrabble Flash incorporates five electronic tiles for three different word games. The first, “Flash,” requires the player to place together as many three-, four- and five-letter words as possible within 75 seconds. The next, “Five-Letter Flash,” asks gamers to figure out the five-letter word using the letters given on each of the five tiles before time expires. The final game, “Pass Flash,” is a multi-person word jumble, which requires players to take turns forming five-letter words within 75 seconds. Those who don’t form a word are eliminated from the game until there is only one person left playing.

Simon Flash takes the classic Simon from the 1980s and updates the experience with four different games using four separate colored tiles. The object of Simon Classic is to repeat the sequence of colored lights, while Simon Shuffle requires the player to copy the original light pattern shown after the tiles have been shuffled. Simon Lights Off asks players to line up the colored tiles in the proper order in order to make them turn off within 90 seconds. The object of Simon Secret Color is to make the tiles light up in the same color by arranging them in the correct order.

Yahtzee Flash uses five electronic tiles, which light up as faces of numbered dice, that allow players to try their luck at four different games. The object of Yahtzee Poker is to “roll the die” to score as many different poker combinations as possible. Yahtzee Max plays on the original board game’s objective to gain two-, three- and four-of-a-kind, by asking users to get as many ones, twos, threes, fours, fives and sixes in three rolls. Yahtzee Wild requires players to get three Yahtzees (all five tiles of the same number) in the least amount of time. Yahtzee Pass is a multi-player game which requires “rolling” a Yahtzee before time expires.



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