Mental Blocks

Locations
Call Number: Games
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Tools

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor Tools Shelf 2-week checkout	Games	2-week checkout	Downtown 1st Fl. Display
Downtown 2nd Floor Tools Shelf 2-week checkout	Games	2-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor Tools Shelf 2-week checkout	Games	2-week checkout	Due 05-02-2024
Downtown 2nd Floor Tools Shelf 2-week checkout	Games	2-week checkout	Due 04-19-2024
Downtown 2nd Floor Tools Shelf 2-week checkout	Games	2-week checkout	Due 05-02-2024

Mental Blocks is the frenetic, nail biting 3D puzzle game you will never want to put up. Players must work together to solve 3d puzzles varying from entry level to hardcore head-scratchers before time runs out! Each player has their own secret perspective to the puzzle, but there's a catch! Every person has a restriction: some players can only touch certain blocks, some can only touch certain shapes, some cannot speak. This leads to delectable disarray as player scurry to solve each puzzle in real-time to graduate to the next puzzle - each ramping in difficulty as you proceed.
Players: 2-9
Age Range: 10+
Play Time: 10-20 minutes

DOCUMENTATION

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Interesting idea, could be better explained submitted by bfields on June 13, 2021, 6:21pm I recommend setting aside time to read the instructions ahead of time, and also first playing a round with all cards revealed, to get an idea how it works.

Like many other games, this has a number of optional variations to keep the game interesting after you've played it several times. Unlike other games, it mixes the instructions for those variations in with the main instructions, which makes starting the first game unnecessarily complicated. You might think the "quick start" instructions on the back page would fill this gap, but in fact they leave out some important details (such as how to set up, and that the required cards are by default all side views oriented upright), and still include some information about variants (such as the restriction and glitch cards).

And, for us, it was just too friggin' hard.

It's an interesting idea, though, and maybe we would have gotten into it with some more effort. I might be up for spending some more time on it some day.

Great Game for a Genius? submitted by ssands on July 12, 2021, 4:19pm Each player gets a card that shows what a small construction of blocks would look like from one side, showing the different block colors as flat squares, rectangles, and triangles. (Kind of like 3-D tangrams.) They are supposed to build the construction without showing their cards to each other. There are also cards with perspective views that show more of the construction, but are in grey. We tried to do one of the easier constructions cooperatively with all of the colored cards showing for everyone. When we couldn't get that, we also tried looking at the grey perspective cards. We still ended up having to check the answer. I don't think this would be a good party game, especially played with constraints. Maybe a team building exercise for engineers?

Really great game submitted by crp on August 4, 2022, 9:45pm This is so great- think Tangrams from childhood- but on steroids!