Every year, Mensa -- the organization for really smart people -- gives out awards to their favorite games. Here are my picks for the best five games to ever win a Mensa Mind Game Award.
Players compete over three rounds of increasing difficulty to identify the same set of celebrities. It's not as easy as it sounds, but it is hilarious. Time's Up won a Mensa Best Mind Games Award in 2000.
An elegant and beautiful abstract board game, Dvonn is a game of placement and stacking. In the first phase, players place their pieces on the board (including three "Dvonn" pieces). In the second phase, they move those pieces, forming stacks. When any pieces become isolated from the "Dvonn" pieces, they're removed from the board. Dvonn won a Mensa Best Mind Games Award in 2002.
Unusual matches of adjectives and nouns make this game wonderfully fun, as long as you don't take yourself too seriously. A Junior version is also available. It was named Games magazine's Party Game of the Year for 2000, and Apples to Apples won a Mensa Best Mind Games Award in 1999.
In this clever, puzzle-like game, players compete to build metro rail lines that are as long as possible, twisting and winding through a city setting. Metro won a Mensa Best Mind Games Award in 2001.
5. Quarto
Players try to align four pieces with similar characteristics -- short or tall, hollow or solid, round or square, dark or light. The twist in this board game is that your opponent gets to choose which piece you play next. Quarto won a Mensa Best Mind Games Award in 1993 and was published by the Great American Trading Company.
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