Iota, the game

Review post

You may remember that a while ago, a friend spotted this game in a shop.

I wrote to the company, Gamewright,  and asked them if they'd like to send me a free Iota, and if so, I'd review it for them. They did, and here is the review.

Iota is like a cross between Uno and Scrabble. The cards are categorised by colour, shape and number. So it's a red triangle with the number 5, or a green circle with the number 2. See? It's Uno's cousin.

You play by laying down on the table a row of cards. They have to be either all the same, or all different. Get it? You can put down a row of 3 red cards, or 4 triangles, or a row consisting of a 3, a 4, and a 2. It then becomes like Scrabble, as each player lays down cards forming new rows, but using what's already on the table as a starting point, and you're able to make two or more rows in a turn.

What we liked:

• It's a good game for a spread of ages. We have often struggled with this (what teenager wants to play snap, and what 3 year old can join her older siblings in Monopoly?). Iota seemed to work for 9 to 16.
• I really like the dinky little square cards, in a dinky little tin. It's nicely produced. Iota can fit in your handbag (and that's a sentence I never envisaged writing). The tin is 5 x 5 x 2.5cm - really dinky.
• It's a mental challenge, but not overload. The game moves quickly enough, and a round is finished before you start to feel it's dragging on.

What we didn't like:

• Scoring. Oh dear, yes, it's one of those games where add up the scores at the end of the round, and need to have a pencil and paper to keep track. I've never liked that in a game - but perhaps that's just a personal thing.
• I thought that Iota didn't know what it is. It's a hybrid looking for an identity. It seems like a travel game (dinky and handbag-sized), but you need a flat surface to play it, and it has to be a large flat surface. We found we were falling off the edge of our kitchen table as the grid expanded in one direction. So that rules out trains, planes, or camping. Come on, Iota, sort yourself out. Are you a travel game, or a home game? I have to add, though, that Husband couldn't see my point here, ("It's just a game. It doesn't have to be a something game or a something other game.") so maybe this is another personal thing. (I had no idea I have such fixed likes and dislikes in games!)
• It didn't quite work. Perhaps we haven't quite understood the rules, but there were occasional turns where we looked at the grid and couldn't work out whether the move was allowed or not.

The verdict

I wanted to love Iota. Of course I did. But I couldn't love it. I did like it, though, and given that it's not a serious financial outlay at only £7.00 on Amazon, I would say give it a go as a stocking filler. Not much to lose, and maybe for your family it'll be one of those games that's addictive over a holiday, and you'll think it was the best £7.00 you spent that Christmas. Whether a game catches on with a family or not is a very personal thing, and though my family didn't adore it, I think the elements are there for other families to do so. And since it's "Mensa Select", you'll be able to enjoy the notion that you are enhancing your children's brainpower as you play.  "Enhance your brainpower with Iota" - that sounds rather good.

Another thought

The Gamewright game that we have loved as a family is Sleeping Queens. I don't know what it is about that game, but though it looks quite girly, it was a huge hit with my two sons when they were 6 and 10, and their interest in it lasted a good 2 or 3 years. I would always take it away on holiday, because it would keep them quiet, guaranteed, when they'd run out of other things to do. My daughter has enjoyed it too.

The game was invented by a child, who wrote to the company with the idea. I like that aspect of it. Didn't we all invent games as a child, and think that they should be produced by a games company? Good for Gamewright for picking up a child's idea. There are a few quirky rules in it, so you have to persevere until you've memorised them and they've become second nature, but I'd say that only takes two or three rounds. The cards are nicely designed, so there is interest just in looking at the pictures. Also available on Amazon, and also an excellent idea for a stocking filler.

Note: I received a free copy of the game Iota (retail value £7.00) to review. All the opinions in this blog post are my own.

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I do what it says on the tin

OK, Bloggy Friends, so I'm going to take a wee blogging breakette. I do it from time to time, and I always return, and I'm always glad I did it.

The new job is going well, but seriously curtails the number of hours I have to do other things. So it might be a choice between feeding my children or blogging, and I know what you'd all tell me to do. At least, I think I do.

Meanwhile, a friend of mine sent me this photo.

It's a new game from Gamewright. Come on, Gamewright, send me one, and I'll review it for you. It would be fun! I always liked Gamewright games when I worked in the toy shop.

According to Gamewright's website, Iota is Mensa Select (does that mean "selected by Mensa"?) and is "the pocket-sized game that's big time fun". Yay, Iota!

Apparently, Iota reinforces

• Spatial Relations 
• Visual Discrimination 
• Strategic Thinking

Go, me!

Please don't delete Iota (the great big blog in the teeny-weeny tin) from your feeders and readers, and I'll see you on the other side of the break.

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In need of an identity

I am a member of a very select group within British Mummy Bloggers. I'm one of a small number who don't have a profile picture. But times are a-changing, and I thought it was a good moment to show my face.

Not literally. Oh no no no. I like hiding away behind words. And that is why I have chosen the following as my profile picture.

I played with various type faces. This one is called Britannic Bold, which I thought might be apt, but it's too brash, don't you think?

Then there was this. I can't remember what it's called, but 12-yo said it was cool.



But I decided to stick with the first, because it was the closest I could find to American cursive, which is so iconic. It just says "America" to me. Personally, I can't see the point of teaching generations of school kids two entirely different styles of writing. They learn printing for three laborious years, and then just as they've mastered that, they have to knuckle under (almost literally) and learn a completely different style. You go from what one teacher described to me as "sticks and balls" to this curly and ornate script that isn't far from copperplate. In Britain, it seems to me that you learn one set of letters, and then you simply learn how to join them up. For those of you who understand these things (and I don't include myself among you), I think I'm a fan of D'Nealian writing.

Enough of all that. In sum, I thought Iota in American cursive script would be a suitable visual cue for this blog. I used a lower case i because the upper case I in American cursive is pretty much unrecognisable (several of the upper case cursive letters are, actually, which is another of my beefs with it). A capital I looks like a T or a P, and I didn't want to become Tota or Pota.

You probably want to know why it's nailed to a tree in my back yard. Well, that's just what I did. I expect there's something sub-conscious going on. Perhaps it's religious imagery. Perhaps it's meant to be like a 'Wanted' poster. Maybe I just wanted to hang it on the tree that I look at out of the window when I sit at the computer. Who knows? I certainly don't.

So what do you think?

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Identity revealed

Here's a final conundrum.

Why did I pick Iota Manhattan as my blog-writing name?

Aha! I can help you with that one. It's an anagram of my maiden name. When I was about 14 or 15, one wet lunch break, stuck in the classroom, I and a friend or two or three occupied ourselves by making up anagrams of the names of people in our class. (I know, I know, most teenage girls talk about boys and make-up. I and my friends made up anagrams. What can I say?) I thought Iota Manhattan was so fabulous, I said "if I ever write something, I'll use it as my pen-name", and so I have.

Apart from my own, my favourite anagram name was Helga R. Cespit. Honestly. I can't give you the original name, in case she googles herself and lands here. I'm not sure we ever told her...

Iota is the Greek letter 'I', of course, so it's very apt for a writing persona. Manhattan gives an American flavour, appropriate now in a way that I could never have foreseen as my teenage self. I do also enjoy a secret ironic chuckle because, as you probably have realised, my location, though American for sure, is a pretty long way, geographically and culturally, from Sarah Jessica Parker territory.

I'm not going to respond to any guesses in the comments section, by the way. I'm not revealing my real name, maiden or married, on the blog. If you're a puzzle-fiend, and you want to have a guess, you can email me and I'll tell you if you've got it right.

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Auntie Clara

Now I don’t normally like being tagged or memed, but this one from Jo Beaufoix has tickled my fancy.

The rules:

1) players must list one fact that is relevant to their life for each letter in their middle name. If you don’t have a middle name then use a name that you like.
2) the other rules are to do with how to pass the tag on to other bloggers, but instead of doing that, I'm just going to say, if you want to have a go, please feel free, and go to Jo's blog to get the full rules. (Sorry, cheating, I know).

I don’t have a middle name, so I am going to use the name Iota.

I is for Iota. Iota is the letter i from the Greek alphabet. Iota is I. Iota is me. I is therefore also for identity. I have long been fascinated by the relationship between fiction and fact; The Purple Rose of Cairo is one of my favourite films. I’m sure any blogger will tell you, blogging means you are drawn into this puzzle in your own life. I am Iota, but it's not as simple as that. She has developed a life a little apart from mine. She has her own friends. (I think she might be rather nicer than me, actually. And I fear more interesting.) This is part of the fascination of blogging.

O is for Olbas oil. Obviously.

T, as in a nice cup of.

A might be for America, a big part of my life at the moment, but that would be too obvious. It might be for A nice cup of T, but that’s a bit repetitive, and anyway, I wouldn’t want to limit myself to just the one. So A can be for Auntie Clara, Husband’s sister, who is coming to visit us this week.

Auntie Clara plays a pretty good initial letter game herself. I played it with her not all that long ago. I got the atlas out, and we went through it, seeing how far we could get through the alphabet on countries she has visited. She is the most widely and most interestingly travelled person I know. I was trying to remember which letters she has left, and have just discovered that she has helpfully put a map on her Facebook page, with a little pin in every country she has been to. It's a pretty crowded map. According to that, she still has K, O, Q, X, Y and Z. I remember from our previous discussion that we decided she needed a trip to the Middle East, which could get her Oman, Qatar and Yemen. Then Africa for Kenya (unless she fitted in Kuwait when in the Middle East) and her pick of Zaire, Zambia and Zimbabwe (she’s been to Zanzibar, but we decided that didn’t count, although we thought it a pretty good try). X is always going to be a challenge, unless she can find Xanadu.

I’m afraid the Midwest will be very tame by her standards. She ideally likes her destination to be remote, full of dangerous diseases, a recent war-zone, and closed to foreigners unless you know someone in the Embassy. We can’t offer much in the way of exotic excitement. We do have trump cards though, in the form of a fine pair of nephews and a splendid niece. They are all excited at the thought of Auntie Clara’s visit. 3-yo has been mysteriously busying herself getting plastic tubs out of the kitchen cupboard, filling them with water, and picking leaves and grass from the garden to float in them. When these had been sitting on the kitchen counter for a couple of days and were getting to that slimy stage, I asked her “could I tidy these away now?” and she was horrified. “But they’re for Auntie Clara”.

So Auntie Clara, if you’re reading this, I’m afraid we can’t offer the kind of curious and astonishing foreign adventures that you are used to, but you do have some strange and wondrous vegetation arrangements to look forward to. Strange, wondrous and beginning to decompose.