games that stimulate your mind

children these days (or for that matter even adults) if you asked them what are their favourite games, they will mention to you some video games or computer games, i’m sure. gone are the days when everybody enjoyed playing board games or any educational games that does not requires one to sit in front of the computer/video.

well many many years back when i was a kid… even up to teenage years… i did enjoyed playing board games a lot. we had those famous games for children like snakes and leaders, ludo, lotto. then we had ‘intelligent’ games like chess and checkers. and of course there were those famous ‘spears’ games like monopoly and scrabble. yes i had played all those games when i was a child/youth… and more (wait, as you read, you’ll know what).

i was pleasantly surprise to note that my favourite online shopping site is filled with information on these type of games and lots more – a very comprehensive shopping guide on all sort of games and educational toys as. well, shop wiki is a revolutionary online shopping experience since it crawls the net just like google search to search for every stores on the internet. thus you can find almost anything and everything.

there is a guide on  educational toys and games  shopping for kids and adults alike. there are games that involves logic like soduku, chess, backgamon and games that involves maths like the classic monopoly. i love to play monopoly when i was young.  monopoly not only involve maths of course but teaches you negotiation skills too!  i had a set of monopoly game, which was actually  given by a friend… a friend (let’s call him F) who love board games and never stop buying  all sorts of board games.  since he was the only child in the family but he like to play board games, whenever he bought some board games he would come over to our house and together with my 3 other siblings, and sometimes with the neighbourhood kids, we would all joined in to play the games!

i remember him introducing to us the game call ‘life’. well as the title suggest, the games requires you to roll your dice and move along in the course of your life where you get to choose a career, get married, have kids, pay insurance, even pay income tax and so on. to some people, this may sound childish and silly but well… to children, it is not a silly game at all. in fact this game brings about a lot of interaction between the players – making fun of each other, joking and teasing. oh btw, the board is kind of 3D type! later on when i grew out of this game, i asked my other friends about this game and was surprise none of them heard of it. however, i was pleasantly surprise that at this great shopping site, this game ‘life’ was listed! you can hop over there to read review about the game then.

my friend, F, also introduced to us one interesting game – forgot the name – where we had to join up the body parts of certain characters. it was a very fun game that got us into lots of laughter when the full picture of the character we formed through our ‘joining of body parts’ turned out to be very silly or hideous!

two years back at one of our office outing, we played the game pictionary. that was the first time i played the game and i must say i enjoyed the game tremendously. we had so much fun. we made so much noise and we laughed so much… at times we even screamed!  let’s see if a computer game can do that to a bunch of adults!

there was another game we played… i forgot the name, where each player has to draw a card and read out the question with objective answers. the other player has to guess the answer. this is a good game to get to know your friends more/deeper but at times it can be embarrasing too as some questions are quite personal.

oh beside owning a monopoly set (which was given by F), i also owned a scrabble set which i was very proud of because it was brought for me by my late father after i passed my form 3 exam. being one of the earliest set, it was the original one with the tiles holder made of wood (and not plastic) and the board thick and sturdy. i do not have the monopoly set anymore but i do have the scrabble set.

sometimes i played some of these games with my 3 siblings (all older than me) especially with my sister, who is 3 years older than me. er… i don’t like to play scrabble and chess with her because i always ended up as the loser whenever  i played with her these two games!

hey, what about card games? do you guys enjoy playing card games? i did! believe it or not, i started playing card games when i was a kid and by the time i was a teenager i knew most of the card games eg poker, blackjack. i will play the games with the neighbourhood kids and no, of course we don’t use ‘money’ when playing the cards… but we use our own ‘money’ – paper money or beads or rubber bands or plastic chains – anything you name it, we used ’em as our ‘money’! haha. of course when i was a teenager, then i started playing with real money but don’t worry lah, that was only during chinese new year time and we only play very very small – 5 cents, 10 cents. haha.

parents who wants to keep your children active, not forgetting healthy and fit, can consider some outdoor toys for your children. there are so many types listed there – you’ll be spoil for choices. on the other hand, there are also creative toys for your children.

oh boy, writing this post brings back memories of those fun days we had playing board games. i really missed those days. those kind of games really get us closer with the interaction and sharing and of course also made us smarter and more creative with the thinking. it’s a pity many kids and young people nowadays are not into board games.

wait… one day… i’ll talk about traditional games! in the meantime, for those who wants to reminiscise (sorry dunno this spelling!) your childhood/teenage time playing such board games, don’t forget to visit shop wiki – and perhaps purchase a game! those who are not into board games would do well to have a look around anyway and be awed by the many many toys and games available. read the preview… who knows perhaps you might be interested in some of the game.