New Backgammon Game at the Fall Toy Preview
Endless Games introduced Quackgammon, a new variation of the backgammon game at the Fall Toy Preview held last week in Dallas, Texas. Quackgammon is a shorter, less strategic version of classic backgammon, designed for younger children than backgammon target audience.Quackgammon, a family-friendly backgammon variation and X-Ceter-O, a variant of another classic board game called tic-tac-toe, were two of the highlights of the Dallas Fall Toy Preview. For three days, the leading games manufacturers in the US presented the products that will fill up the toys stores in the winter of 2009.
New versions of old board games (backgammon is estimated as 5,000 old while tic-ta-toe has roots in the Roman Empire) was one of the outstanding trends revealed at the recent Fall Toy Preview. Other tendencies in children's game design include recycled, battery-free toys, virtual worlds and MMORPGs for kids, and more products based on Walt Disney's recent hits, Nickelodeon and PBS playsets and even on Star Wars.
More Backgammon Variations for Kids:
Most backgammon variations designed for kids dismiss most of the strategy elements and concentrate on the luck and speed. "Blast Off" is one example. The backgammon variant introduced in Oswald Jacoby and John Crawford The Backgammon Book, excludes the part of hitting blots and puts forward two of the players' back checkers from the 24-point to the mid-point.
"The Blocking Game" is a backgammon variant for advanced "Blast Off" players. In the initial setup, both players' checkers are placed outside the board, and the players' aim to move all of them around the board and afterwards to bear them off. "Blocking Express" is a faster, shorter variant of "The Blocking Game" where doubles are played differently, so when a player rolls a double, he gets to play the rolled double and the following doubles in ascending order. For example, if a player rolls 4-4 he plays 4-4, then 5-5 and then 6-6.
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