Friday 10 June 2011

Colinism

This morning Colin was off on his own, building Lego, as he can often be found. But what he built astonished me, once again. He called me over to show me this:




This is a game he built. It is sort of a cross between Guess Who and Battleship with a twist of logic. Each person has a game board. The goal of the game is to find the other person's airplane and launch your missile at them. You hide your own airplane (represented by the little red stick you can see in the middle of the boards) somewhere on the board. Each lego piece on the board represents a land feature the airplane would come fly over. Features include the lava pit, the mountain, the runway, the plain, and the regular airspace (the grey circles.)

Each player takes a turn asking a question, trying to locate the other person's airplane. The questions Colin used as examples were ones like "is your airplane flying toward the lava pit?" Since the lava pit is the small red square at the top, middle of the board, you can see that if the answer is "no" it would eliminate any of the squares on the board in the top row or the middle column (anything in line with the lava pit.) You can see Colin's mind working as he created more complex questions than just "is your airplane on this specific square," instead opting for questions that would actually narrow down the location more quickly.

Once you think you have located your opponent's airplane, you launch your missile. Each board has a missile launch on the outside yellow border of the game, and you actually get to pick up the missile and physically launch it through the air and land it on your opponent's airplane.

Seriously, I think Colin could market this one. Funny enough, a five year old just created a game that he could market to children twice his age. I am constantly amazed.

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