Toy Story V

Toys need not be so complex. Even toys with simple design, or those that we can make on our own using common materials around us, can provide a reasonable amount of thrill and enjoyment. Most of these games involve physical nimbleness and dexterity.

Five Stones



This is one of the most traditional games in the past. It probably originated from stones, and then evolved into mini beanbags. Come to think of it, it would be really painful to grab the stones and suffer from skin abrasion.

Swift hands is a necessity in this game. Sadly I wasn’t good at it at all. I even had problems clearing the ‘first stage’ where you have to throw a stone, pick another and catch the stone as it lands. These actions must be performed using the same hand. If I throw it too low, I can’t grab the other stone in time. If I throw it too high, I won’t be able to catch it properly. Put it simply, I suck at this game haha.


Zero point



This is a strange game where the stage counter starts from ‘zero’ instead of the normal ‘one’. The game is basically about crossing the rope, which is usually made from rubber band chains. The height of the rope increases each time, from ground level to top of head. I remember having difficulty passing the ‘under-pocket’ level because it is the highest level at which the rope cannot be touched when crossing. The rope may be touched for subsequent levels, but cart-wheeling is required, which I can’t perform. =(

I don’t think I’ve ever reached beyond one-point. Because of this, I can’t get to play those interesting levels that come at later stages, like ‘wave’ and ‘gate’. (forgot what these special levels are called). I didn’t try to put any effort in practicing, so yeah, I suck at this one too…

By the way thanks to zero-point, I could better visualize and understand the concept of standing waves in physics haha.


Chapteh



I have no idea why the chapteh craze could last for so long. I was first exposed to it in primary school, when many bought it from the school bookshop. Through secondary school until JC, I was surprised that people are still interested in this kicking (or rather, picking) game. Is a bunch of feathers really so addictive?


Eraser



The aim of the game is to flip your eraser on top of your opponent’s. This is pretty easy to accomplish. But its simplicity is precisely why it might be difficult to win. You can flip the eraser to the top easily, as long as the distance is close enough, but so can your opponent. As a result, nobody dares to make the first move forward. This is like martial arts sparring where both sides just encircle the area, staring intently at each other, hesitant to take the first plunge.

This game was really hot during my lower primary days. You could see students playing from assembly to recess, to inside the school bus after dismissal. However after some time it was banned because of suspected gambling.

I even went to buy an entire box of country flag erasers. This is where I learnt the knowledge of country flags from haha. Of course, the eraser with SG flag printed was treated as the most valuable one.


Top Spinning (Gasing)



During my childhood time this game wasn’t that popular anymore. But luckily I had the chance to try it out at least once, from my Malay neighbor. You wind a string around the edge of the top, then pull it quick and hard to let it spin on the ground. Sounds easy but it’s not. Both winding and pulling requires skill. If not done properly, the top will topple right after the string is pulled. This was what happened in my first attempts. I think I’m really bad in such games.

There is also an electronic type where you just have to twist its axle with your fingers and it will spin and balance on its own. It even gives off flashing light patterns and music while spinning. I think I’m more suited to play such idiot-proof kinds.


Yoyo



This is similar to a top, except that a yoyo spins vertically and the string is attached to it. It used to be very popular during one period, when many were seen playing flaunting their ‘Pro-yo’ or ‘Bumblebee’ with awesome flicks. I only know how to swing it up and down, until the yoyo loses energy. Shame to say, this was a result of the mentality “if others have, I must have it too”.

One big problem is that the string tends to get tangled easily. When I can’t untangle it, the yoyo is officially ‘spoilt’ haha.


Marbles



I didn’t actually play using the traditional playing method – striking other marbles out of the circle. My marbles are made of glass and I couldn’t bear to throw them around. They were actually used as decorations but I took it to play. =p It was pretty fun just by rolling them around the floor or releasing them onto self-made slopes.

An annoying thing is marbles can be very noisy, especially when they bounce. My family once received a complaint from our neighbours living below us because of this. Anyway if you were to hear bouncing marbles coming from the ceiling, it’s probably a ghost since nobody plays with marbles nowadays. Woooo~~~

Toy Story IV

Continued from the previous theme. Toys that can be played alone, but gets boring easily. =)


Toy Guns



Bang! Bang! Bang! How lame. -__- I’m not fond of these toy weapons from the start, including toy swords and water guns. Those I had last time were probably given to me and my bro by someone else who thinks that boys like playing with such weapons. Those guns with flashing lights that give off a super-loud annoying noise when the trigger is pulled, really gets on my nerves. There are also some pistols that shoot small metal beads, which can be really painful if struck by them.


Tamiya Cars



I’m referring to those mini racing car models run by battery-operated motor, manufactured by a Japanese company Tamiya. Operating the car is simple (well, just turn the switch on and let it run) but building it up is not, especially if you’re not satisfied with its basic ability and wish to modify it to run faster. Sounds like computer eh? One troublesome thing is fixing back the parts after the car crashes. I used to spot racing tracks set up outside neighbourhood stores that sell these models. I guess nobody plays them anymore?


Toy Truck



The seemingly unattractive truck deserves a section on its own due to its significance in one of my experiences. Long long ago, I was admitted to hospital once and my mum brought a toy truck for me. As simple as that haha. When you’re small, little things like this can reside in your memory and follow till adulthood. Subsequently, the toy truck gives me a feeling of recovery from illness. If one day I’m admitted to hospital for some reason (touch wood), maybe somebody can bring me a toy truck haha. Not all toy trucks will do, only certain kinds though.


Jigsaw Puzzle



Till now, my interest in jigsaw puzzles hasn’t waned. It is the space and money constrain that keeps me from buying new puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles can be quite an expensive hobby actually. And there are still a few framed puzzles in my storeroom that haven’t been hung up yet. I started off with jigsaws with a frame board, meant for kids. Slowly, I progressed to those with large pieces without frame, then to 500 – 1000-piece puzzles with cartoon illustrations, then to those with scenery instead, and finally to 2000-piece, which is my maximum for now. Haven’t got the chance to touch on 3D-puzzles however.

It’s always a dilemma on whether to invest in jigsaw puzzles, as the joy they bring is often short-lived. You may get an adrenaline rush when working on the puzzle, but once it’s completed, that’s it. The faster the puzzle is finished, the quicker the enjoyment ends. There is always an option to undo everything and save it for the next time, but I couldn’t bear to break apart the masterpiece I’ve painstakingly assembled.


Stuffed Toys



I’ve a sensitive nose, but not so sensitive to the extent that I’ve to avoid soft toys. Anyway I’ve to thank all my teddy bears, dog, squirrel, rabbit, etc for accompanying me through my toddler and early childhood years. Looking at their cute faces and innocent eyes gave me comfort and consolation whenever I felt like crying. On the other hand, a badly sewn, ugly soft toy makes me irk.

As I grow up, I gradually became immune to their cuteness. They can’t comfort me anymore. =( By the way if you see any soft toys around my house, they are not bought by me, but someone else older… >_>…

Talking about cute, let me share a really cute video.



I like how they twitch their noses ^_^. Proud to be born in the Rabbit year haha.

To think people derive pleasure from crushing rabbits...sigh.

Toy Story III

The last installments I talked about intellectual games like board games, card games and chess. This entry I’ll touch on the “less intellectual” toys, or rather, toys that you can play on your own without aiming to win the opponent. They are less stressful and less mentally tiring to play, but may get boring easily, especially when playing alone.


Lego



I used to be a Lego fan. This is probably a reason why I like servbots haha. Basically Lego is all about combining pieces to create structures or objects of various themes, of which ‘medieval’ and ‘city’ are my favourites. Memorable names include Merlin, the wizard (I forgot the name of his companion dragon haha), and Octan, the petrol company. Lego was also my motivation to study hard as every year my parents promised to buy a large set for me if I were to score well in my final exams.



Through the years however, I started to lose interest in Lego. It used to be cheap and affordable in the past but now it’s really expensive. Ten bucks for just a few pathetic pieces. Furthermore the pieces are getting bigger and simpler, and thus no longer pose much challenge in building the blocks. The larger pieces also make it difficult to customize your own design. I bade farewell with my extensive Lego collection when I shifted house last year. Moreover it was taking up far too much space.

I had robotics lessons during Sec 2, and we were taught how to construct Lego robots. It re-spurred my childhood interest in Lego, but unfortunately it didn’t last for long. I bought a Lego robotics set in a rash, but lost interest shortly after that, because I realized that I don’t have a flair for designing and programming. A terrible waste of money. Now you know why are toys so expensive.


Fishing Game



This used to be quite a popular game. It requires good reflex and steady hands. However the mechanism is too fault-prone. After some time, the fish will become unable to close their mouths properly, their jaws will become loose, and their tails will get stuck to the bottom. But the most frustrating thing is that the fishing lines get tangled too easily. Ok, that’s the players’ fault haha. The fact that this toy is battery operated makes it inconvenient at times. Such toy makes you wonder why the battery life is always so short.


Penguin Slide



This toy has many variations on the sliding object, but usually it is an animal or a car. Somehow I enjoy looking this kind of moving mechanics. Just like those useless mechanisms that transport a ball from one place to another through activating many mini-machines along the way by its movement. I don’t know what that thing is called, but there are people who derive pleasure just by looking at it.


Polystyrene Planes



Provision shops used to sell such model planes in packets. The plane has to be manually assembled from its polystyrene-made parts. Because of the lightweight material, the plane is able to drift steadily in the air, much better than paper-folded ones. It was fun at first, but it gets tiring when you have to keep walking over to pick it up. I think I once flew it from the 10th storey, watched it glide past the flats and disappear from sight. Oops, was that littering?


Special Mention: Tikam



This can’t get any lamer. These black bags (not like the one shown in the picture above), with a big question mark printed, were sold for 1 dollar each in the minimart. The contents were entirely random, ranging from useless toy pieces to even money! Once I even found a two-dollar note inside. Buying a two-dollar note with one dollar, how funny. Wonder who came up with this silly idea. But I’ve to admit that it can be pretty exciting at times, especially when you are feeling very lucky.

To be continued...

Toy Story II

Last entry I talked about boardgames. This time let’s backtrack a little and look at simpler games that I’ve played when I was younger.


Games Compendium (10-in-1 or 5-in-1)



A combination of many roll-and-move games, that came with pawns, chips and dice. The playing ‘boards’ were made of paper, so it was really budget. I remember how cheaply such sets were sold in provision stores. Games include the well-known snakes-and-ladders, racing game, star game, space game, chess (dumb) etc. These are the most basic boardgames I started off playing. The magnetic board version was also rather popular.




Othello (Reversi, or Black-White Chess)



The rules are pretty simple but the strategy may be complex. At one moment you might seem to be winning, and at another, the whole board can suddenly change colour. If the board is dominated by your colour at the early stage, it doesn’t mean it will continue as such. Placing of pieces at strategic spots is very important, and just trying to flip over as much of opponent’s colour every turn is not going to work. This game requires constant flipping, which can be quite a hassle, especially if it’s of miniature size and clumsy hands may mess up the whole setup. I used to confuse this with Weiqi (or Go), which also uses black and white pieces. Oh, there was once an arcade version (in big screens) and I liked watching how human players get trashed by the AI haha.


Chinese Chess



Up till this day I still don’t have a strategy in playing this game. I know how the pieces move, but I’ve totally no idea when is the best time, or what is the best way to move them. I used to enjoy watching others play, but I hate it when people take too long to make their moves =p. And my favourite phrase in this game is 双炮将死棋！


Mastermind



The procedure for each game is actually quite fixed, how fast you finish depends on your initial guess. Just like 933 醉心密码. Technically the game can be rather boring in this sense. Instead of playing the actual game, I always liked to play around with the colourful studs and create patterns out of them.


Pick-up Sticks



Another colourful game haha. You need a really steady hand to play this one. Unfortunately it gets boring pretty fast, without a clearly defined set of rules. At many occasions, I found myself unable to proceed with the game because the sticks cannot be simply picked without agitating the rest. I used to treat the sticks for other purposes, like toy joss sticks haha.


Uno



Other than the popular classic card game, Uno has many other variants like Uno Stacko, Uno Madness, Uno Dominos, etc. Uno Madness is my favourite, where you have to race against time to place the correct tiles before the entire board ‘pops’ up. Those with weak hearts may suffer a heart attack from playing this hahaa. Uno stacko is another tense game where you cannot afford to have butter fingers. Seeing (and hearing) the tower crash may be fun, but building the blocks from scratch is not. I was once a Uno fan and bought many related games, including a jumbo pack which consists of several Uno variants.






Misc Cardgames
Donkey, Old Maid, Happy Family, etc…who could ever forget these childhood games?




Popular games I’ve not played before
Battleship, Risk, Game of Life, Jenga, Twister etc.

Nowadays I see more kids playing with their handheld gadgets instead of these physical card/board/object games. Looks like such traditional games are gradually losing their appeal among the young. They might even not have heard about these games before. Hopefully these games, which have accompanied me through the joys of my childhood, will not just vanish into history in the near future.

Toy Story

Toys are part and parcel of our childhood. As we grow and develop, the ‘toys’ we play also become more intelligent too. Boardgames and cardgames are examples of ‘toys’ which requires more thinking skills to play compared to the rest. (They may be regarded as toys since they are classified under the toys section in departmental stores)

Here are some boardgames that I started off playing when I was a kid. An inconvenience of such games is that you can’t play them on your own, you have to find someone else to play with, which can be quite difficult if you stay at home often or have friends who aren’t enthusiastic in playing such games.

Generally my first boardgames were the roll-dice-and-move type. Depends a lot on luck and it may get boring after a while. Unfortunately this has become the mentality that most layman have about boardgames. Just like how cardgames equates to gambling.

Monopoly



This should be the most well-known boardgame in the world, with several editions and variations. I used to have the ‘Lion City’ edition, where street names are based on actual places in Singapore:



For your information, Geylang and Serangoon were the cheapest properties (brown) while Nassim Road and Queen Astrid Park were the most expensive properties (purple). Check the street directory if you don’t know where these places are. However at present, people would regard Marina Bay and Sentosa Cove as the most expensive properties, thanks to MacDonalds.

The flow of the game will depend very much on your die roll, which determines where you land. At the beginning, everyone would compete to finish the first round as fast as possible so that they can start buying properties on the second round. The rule of thumb is basically buy where you land on, since you’ll never know how often others will land on your property and pay you rent. If you can manage to secure all properties of the same colour set, you’re lucky. Otherwise if others manage to buy away one of them, you’ll (almost) never get a chance to complete the set anymore.

I had played the videogame version of Monopoly before, and the AI gave in too easily. I attempted to trade for a property that completes my colour set. Although the AI rejected my offer initial, it eventually accepted when I raised the agreed sum. Then I started building houses and hotels, and finally killed off the AI muhahaha.

The latest Monopoly Deal card game introduces a new dimension to how this property game can be played. Looks like the Monopoly legacy will always live on.

Scrabble



One of the most troublesome boardgames I’ve played IMO. It can be a big headache to calculate the points of every word formed, so I omitted the point system when playing in the past. Because of this, the game somehow became meaningless. Another tough part is trying to form the correct word. With limited vocabulary, we were often stuck with our letters. There were also frequent doubts on whether a certain word exists or not. Looking up the dictionary every turn was a hassle. In all, I actually disliked this game.

I think playing this game via the computer is much much easier. (eg. Playing online thru Facebook) Points are calculated automatically and you can just type the word in a box to search the dictionary.

Cluedo



A game with good theme but boring gameplay. Basically you walk around the mansion, enter rooms, find weapons and guess the murderer. The game can end pretty quickly if a lucky guess manages to strike. Moving from room to room is really uneventful and boring.

MAD Magazine



I think the illustration of that boy is really ugly.



So ugly that I used to get nightmares of him when I was small.

Anyway back to the boardgame, it has some really weird rules, basically opposite to that of Monopoly. You’re supposed to lose all your money instead. You move anticlockwise around the board instead of clockwise. Drawing chance cards can be quite punishing too. Although I only played this game twice or so, the bizarre rules (and illustrations) left an impression on me.

Super Mario Bros



I really liked this game a lot. The concept is similar to that of the videogame – destroy bricks, get coins and save the princess from the castle. Didn’t get much chance to play however, as this game belonged to my neighbor and some game pieces were lost.

Careers


Felt like an adult when playing this game haha. The aim of the game is to become successful in your career, while balancing love life and gaining fame. Sadly this is not easy to achieve in reality. This game was fun to play, but jotting down the love and fame points every now and then can be quite arduous, and it kills the pace of the game.

Trouble



The game is not as distressing as its name. Another typical roll-die-and-move kind of game, just that the die is not rolled, but popped by pressing the transparent shell in the middle. There isn’t much to this game; it can even be played on paper. Bought this as I was attracted by the commercial. Now you know why toys are so expensive.


Boardgames now have a different meaning to me, thanks to my platoon commander who introduced those non-typical boardgames (which can’t be found in departmental stores) and changed my mentality of all boardgames being roll-and-move kind that gets boring over time. Those games are generally not meant for kids and require a great deal of analytical and planning skills. The mind-stimulating factor of such boardgames is what makes them interesting and differentiates them from typical luck-dependent games where praying to the dice is often needed.