INGENiOUS
Ages: Everyone

On the install screen I saw this message, "We created this game for your enjoyment, If you think we fell short of that, just send your Merscom produced game CD to us and we'll send you another Merscom game at no charge." Amazing! I have often said that if you bought a game and couldn’t play it through, you should send it back as a defective product. Here the company is standing behind its product. In fact, guaranteeing your enjoyment and satisfaction. Would that more game companies would offer a like guarantee!

INGENiOUS is also a popular board game. Here it appears full size on your screen in five different colors on hexagonal tiles – pretty and easy to look at. The tiles are coupled, like dominoes, with any combination of the five colors. Music is so easy to listen to that I didn't realize it was on, until someone came by to speak to me. In it's simplest form, the idea is to place tiles to get long strings of single colors. You play with all five different colors, and the winner is the one with the highest score of the lowest color. The strategy then is to pay attention to all the colors. On a first try, it looked like I was winning because my score was going through the roof, but I left one of my colors behind – and lost. It's like many other games, like Scrabble, that look simple but take practice to master.

There are options to play 2, 3, or 4 players – the available area of the board becomes larger to accommodate more players. If you activate "Hot Seat" multiple players can take turns, otherwise it's LAN. Single players can play against the clock. It's a nice change from Chinese Checkers.

Fun Factor: Yes, I think I'll keep the game
Player Friendly: Easy to start and intriguing enough to continue.

Reviewed by: Editor - 08/07