Fat Brain Toys Acuity

This is a very good family game. Everyone who played it have enjoyed it.The tiles are really thick and made of high quality cardboard. Yes, they're not the "best" I've seen, but certainly they are better than most tiles seen in many other board games. Nice box and game insert!The explained game rules suggest many variants you can play with. They are all good.I suggest that you should play the game by adding the challenge rule as well as the wrong call rule, explained on the back of the rules paper. The game is more fun this way. We do not use the "point game" variant suggested.I'd also suggest a little nice variant to make the game more speedy and challenging (we always play this way):Regarding legal matches, only corner and side matches are allowed. The third type of finding a match which is "clockwise/counterclockwise match" is not allowed.This made the game more fun, more attentive and challenging when trying to find a match. It also made it faster to call out for a challenge when no match found.Another variant if you want to incorporate "clockwise/counterclockwise matches" is to make the grid 4x4 (not 6x6).This will make a match somewhat more difficult (but this third type of matching will compensate for the difficulty). Therefore, providing almost the same attractive game experience with faster calls for challenges.The above 2 variants were tested and they worked great (better than the original in our opinion).You can test your own too.Recommended for families and parties!

This is a good game in the genre of pattern/shape/color recognition games such as Set. It is easy to teach and doesn't take long to play. It is also suitable for solitaire play or for playing without worrying about score. It would also be easy amenable to house rules, or handicaps for younger players. For example, you might allow a younger player 5 seconds to look at a tile to match before the adults get a try.My son is older, but I imagine that kids of 8 and up could learn to play. It is definitely good brain exercise. One good feature in this regard is the rules allow you to turn one tile on the board to get a match the time to be matched. This forces you to visualize changes in the pattern of the board.The components are basically a set of solid cardboard tiles, with all possible patterns of the 4 shapes in the set. The tiles are solid--about 1/8" thick--so they should stand up pretty well to lots of play.One other nice feature. I am color-blind, so I often have trouble with games in which color may be the only identifying characteristic of a game component. In Acuity, you can identify the images by either shape or color; for example, the circles are always blue.

We are NOT a board game / game night kind of family. Still, I love this puzzler! We play on a large coffee table and have added switching places to the game rules. Being able to see from above also helps. Oh, and we don't play competitively. Everyone pitches in to find a match. Lastly, you may call it cheating, but sometimes we just add onto the corners and make a larger playing field when matches can't be found. It's a team sport in our house.

This is basically the board game equivalent of any app-store match-3 game. The adults actually quite liked it, and I could actually play this with other adults and be perfectly amused as any "adult game". Kid-players unfortunately did not get the hang of the concept very easily and it left the adults winning almost every time, which unfortunately left them upset and not wanting to play it anymore. Even though it says age 6+ I think I would recommend it for older kids, perhaps 10ish (and any age adult), unless you want to fake-lose sometimes and let them win but I'm not a fan of that in our family.

I bought this game for my son's 10th birthday as he loves board games (chess, King of Tokyo, Forbidden Desert, Ticket to Ride are some of this favorites). We played it almost immediately, and he beat me soundly. On Thanksgiving, I was going to play the solitaire version, and ended up playing with my brother-in-law with the whole family participating. Would definitely recommend!