Mind Games was held this past weekend to select five favorite games from a selection of 64 games that were submitted by the publishers. Over 150 Mensans and friends gathered in Houston, TX to try out these games and vote for their favorites, the 5 winners receiving the right to place the Mensa Select logo on their packages and advertising. This was my second Mind Games, having attended once before when it was held in Medina, OH in 2001. The selection of games this year seemed to be dominated by word games, party games, trivia games and educational games. Adult level strategy games, while present, were far in the minority, a disappointment for me.The full list of of games and their publishers will be given below. Here are the 5 games chosen as this year's Mensa Select winners:

Transamerica (Rio Grande Games) - this simple, fast-playing strategy game has players trying to be the first to connect 5 randomly dealt cities by a growing rail network. The cities each player holds in his hand are known only to him. Once your track connects with another players' you may each build off of each others' rail lines.

Blokus (Educational Insights) - this game also won the European Spiele des Jahres gaming award in 2002. Each player has a collection of 21 pieces in various shapes similar to those in the computer game Tetris. Taking turns, players attempt to place as many of their pieces on the game board as possible. Restrictions on how the pieces are placed require thinking and planning ahead, as well as observation of other players' moves.

Cityscape (Pin International, imported and distributed by Out of the Box Publishing) - a piece-placing strategy game with very nice wooden parts. Before playing players predict how the city will look from their point of view. They then take turns placing various sizes of building pieces on the grid. Points are scored for how well your predict the final outcome as it looks from your side of the board.

Fire & Ice (Pin International, imported and distributed by out of the Box Publishing) - another very nice wooden strategy game for just 2 players. You must control 3 islands in a row or circle to win. You gain control of the islands by having 3 of your pawns in a row or circle on the island. Each turn you move one of your pawns then replace it with one of your opponents where you moved from.

Octiles (Pin International, imported and distributed by Out of the Box Publishing) - yet another well done wooden strategy game. This one combines parts of Chinese Checker with a labyrinth game. You try to move your pawns across the board to your opponent's starting area by swapping the tiles on the board and using the paths created. You are limited, however, to using only the tile that has been passed to you by the previous player.

In addition to the 3 winners above, Pin International/Out of the Box Publishing had one other wooden game in this series that was submitted for consideration named Quadtria. At $30 each, these games have outstanding components for the price, as well as being fun to play. Octiles was my #1 choice among the games that I played over the weekend.

At Mind Games judges are given a list of 30 random games out of the total submitted for consideration. At the end of the weekend, ballots are submitted with all of the judges' top 7 choices of the games they have played. From these ballots the top 5 are chosen to receive the Mensa Select Award. Following the announcing of the winners all of the games used in the judging are given away as door prizes to the attendees. Names are drawn at random and the winners get to choose the game they desire from those available. This continues until all of the games are gone or nobody is interested in the few that remain. I came away with copies of Globopolis (Globopolis) and Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Rose Art/dist. by Warren Ind.). The former is perhaps the most hardcore "gamers' game" in the contest while the latter is the official tie-in game to the first LOTR movie. The game board ends where the movie ends with information indicating there will be an expansion to continue where it leaves off. For $20 the components are exceptionally well done and use many scenes from the film.

The following is the full list of games and their publishers for Mind Games 2003. I have contact information for all of these companies if anybody is interested:

BackRound (Anomaly Games), Bedmas (Alagan Design) Bird, Bugs & Beans (R&R Games), Blokus (Educational Insights), Bluff 'N' Peg (Spy Alley Partners), Bucket King (Kosmos/Rio Grande Games), Bullmarket (Great Canadian Game Co.), Burn Rate: The Dot-Com Game (Cool Studio), Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers (Rio Grande Games), Check Out! (Gamewright), Cityscape (Pin Intl./Out of the Box Publishing), Conjecture for Kids (Outset Media Corp.), Coodju Lite (Anomaly Games), Crossword Pyramids (Cardchess International), Derivation (Entspire), Dibs (Tolany LLC), Don't Quote Me (Wiggles 3D Inc.), Doubletake (Vida Games), Fire & Ice (Pin Intl./Out of the Box Publishing), Friends & Fortunes (Ozmioz Games), Globopolis (Globopolis), GrayMatter (GrayMatter Game Co.), Hawaiian Glyphs (CW Heileg & Co.), Hijara (Eclipse), Hocus Focus (Gamewright), Holiday Hop! (Liberty Games), Knock-Out! (Old Fashioned Products), Lakeedah (Tekeiles Games), Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring Board Game (Rose Art/Warren Ind.), Maya Madness (Game wright), Mozaic (Eclipse), Nanofictionary (Looney Labs) National Geographic Geo Bee Challenge Game (Warren Ind.), Octiles (Pin Ind./Out of the Box Publishing), Out of Control (ACT Games), Path Blitzer (Pastime Games), PDQ (Game wright), Proclaim! (Lunch Table Inc.), Professor Noggin's Card Game Series (Outset Media), Proverbial Wisdom Jr. (Proverbial Wisdom), Puzzelar (3mg), Quadtria (Pin Intl./Out of the Box Publishing), Red-Handed (Games for All Reasons), Rhumb Line (Eclipse), Rigamarole (Hidden Talents), Risky Business (Adventure Games), River Crossing (ThinkFun), Shanjari (FUNaddicts Games), Similarius (Outset Media), Skribble, The Mystery Drawing Game (TDC Games), Snowball Fight (S&S Innovations), Squiggle (Random Line), Tall Tale Pocket Edition (Stalefish Labs), The Touch (Anthony Innovations), Transamerica (Winsome Games/Winning Moves/Rio Grande Games),Trio Quadro' (Knext Games), Van Gogh and Friends (Birdcage Books), Vegas, The Board Game (NASCO Inc.), Vici: The Game of Strategy and Instincts in Ancient Rome (Tenth Muse Prod.), VisualEyes (Buffalo Games), Wheedle (Out of the Box Publishing), Wordblind (4th Law Ltd.), WordXchange Junior (Prodijeux), Zoki - Red Alexa (Eternity Games)