T is for Two - Dinosaur Games at Kennsington Olympia

Not necessarily a 'trend' but I did spot two new Dinosaur games at the Toy Fair a few weeks ago, and they both have plastic toy dinosaurs, for tactile play-value, so let's have a quick look at the shelfies.

 

Some of the images are a bit fuzzy, the lighting at these shows is not always conducive to photography out on the floor - the 'real' press have a set of booths where they can take stuff for filming, us mere mortals have to make under a variety of oscillating, flashing, digital lighting systems which can play havoc with the camera's own setting!

 

We've seen Tactic before, and this seems to be an everlasting, or ever-changing board, where new sections get laid-down or removed in order to keep play moving forward? With two duplicate dinosaurs visible, it may be that the contents are assorted and varied from box to box, but I don't know, they are the smaller size of PVC-like dinosaurs.

 

There were two other sets with similar contents, one of insects the other domestic/farm animals, and one suspects that all-three are bought-in and may appear elsewhere, or have already been seen under other, brands, in more conventional toobs, tubs or as bagged/blistered rack-toys?

Website;

https://games.tactic.net/en/

 

 

Max & Ivy are a totally new enterprise, and while there were other products, this was the only one with toy figures. Filling an early-learning niche, you get a story book, play mat and some better quality (than the Tactic) dinosaurs in the medium-small range, with excellent decoration - think; the sets from Keycraft or WHSmiths, The Dimetrodon is particularly nice, but I would say that wouldn't I?!

 

I wouldn't presume to the arrogance of thinking that corporate buyers ever visit this blog, but if you happen to be passing and have any connection with buying for toy shops, convenience stores, or some school/youth facility chain, the lady behind Max & Ivy is looking for buyers, outlets, or partners, and can be found here;

 

https://www.enjoywithmaxandivy.com/

 

It seems to be a one-woman concern, and it would be nice if it could succeed in a cut-throat world!

T is for Toy Fair 2020 Reports - Tactic - 15 Minutes to Self Destruct

I mentioned that one of the items I shot at the toy fair had made it into more general coverage, and this be the fella'; 15 Minutes to Self Destruct from Tactic Games.

The hook as far as we are concerned is the four individually-sculpted figurines for the playing counters, each about 28/30mm-compatable, and they would paint-up well as the futuristic pajama-wearing crew of any space-fleet of your choice! Each is a different coloured plastic and are paired; two male and two female figures, so no charges of sexism possible!

I can see two problems with this game; 1 - if each player takes the five switches to his left after the start point-leaving switch, in a snake sweep, they should all (bar Yellow) be able to clear them very quickly, in sequence, with Red or Purple going to Yellow's aid if they finish their 'sector' first.

2 - If the cards/app/dice won't allow such a simple system, the onus would be on all players to short-count, or over-count to land on a switch needing turning-off, and - because it's a game reliant on teamwork, against the clock - the other three to turn a blind eye?

I stress that that's guesswork from studying these three images, but a game designed to be played in less than fifteen-minutes may be open to cheat-hacks? Perhaps if anyone does play it - they could put me right and explain it to the rest of us! There's also the problem that it needs an 'App' to be downloaded, which has shades of all those old 1980's cassette-tape and 1990's VHS-video games, even some 2000's DVD games, all of which seem to pile-up in Charity-shops like weird driftwood . . . alongside 12" Gajagoogoo singles!

Really - it's all about the figures! Red and Blue have their minds on the job, Yellow and Purple seem to have stopped panicking about the self-destruct and decided to celebrate imminent obliteration with a dance!

A is for Another . . . Board Game with Turtle Ninjas

. . . another charity-shop purchase . . . another Nickelodeon-licensed to Tactic game . . . another box ticked!

Now I'm back using the library for internet, these boxes get shot in the shopping precinct and left there! I may be more honest and open with friends and family about my collecting than some in the hobby (anyone read the recent story of the family sorting out their late father's property for sale, finding thousands of quid's-worth of model trains under the floorboards, even the deceased man's wife new nothing about!) but I'm not wandering around town with a kids toy box under my arm any longer than I have to!

'Kimble'? It used to be called Ludo or 'Pachisi' when I wer't' whipper-snapper nipper!

Four times four figures, each colour-coded by 'Lone Ranger' style 'kerchief mask and coming in at a comfortably-compatible with role-playing figures' 28mm, you'd have to remove the locating-tube under the bases though. Softish PVC-replacement polymer.

The only point to note is that the purple one (Yeah! I could look 'im up, but I can't be arsed! Botticelli the Younger, Mona Liza Presley . . . one of them!) comes in two variants; two-each with the staff bent forward at the top, two-each backward and there's no apparent reason for it?

T is for Toy Fair '18 Reports - Tactic Games

Continuing le theme du'jour! This was a new company to me, and they only had three or four games on display, two of which contained the figural elements Small Scale World craves, both of which will annoy anyone who groaned when they saw the snails earlier, but for posterity and completion - I'll persevere!

Alias; not a game familiar to me, but it has little men who are half-way between Rowntree's jelly-babies and Tony Hart's Morph! And that fact alone gets them onto the Blog!

Sadly the poses on the box are not repeated in the counters, who look even more like jelly-babies and less like Morph! Likewise the smaller 'children' on the box don't seem to have made it to the games contents, clearly a graphic trope to get across the family-friendly nature of the game?

They are very much a case of find-one-of-each-colour-file-and-forget as far as collecting goes, but they are figural, you get a 'free' sand-timer and they are probably fun! I'll be looking out for them in the charity shops in a year or two's time.

The same figures are included in the Junior Draw Out game seen in one of the background shots below. Also note how one of the red figures doesn't have the small disc-base of the others; earlier version left in the sales-team's display sample, or common variant?

They also had Cool Catch out on a table, this has . . . er . . . wooden flats I'd clearly forgotten about when I mention cows (or a cow) in the previous post (the problem of queuing these posts up on the laptop in random order!)

The reason I haven't collaged these is because I didn't crop them tight as they have some of the other games from Tactic in the background which I thought I'd leave visible!

A nice touch - especially for wooden flats - is the addition of a faux-fur fringe on the hoods of the Esquimaux's suits. And it looks from the box art as if the game was initially going to be for four players, but there are six figures; brown and yellow being included.

And a polar bear! I think (I hope - given the target age-range!) he only steals fish, and isn't in the business of eating Inuit! I only got  a bum shot I'm afraid, but he was more realistic (for a wooded flat!) than the cartoony inhabitants of the Arctic circle!

Again, it's not something I'm going to buy as a grown man who is supposed to collect Toy Soldiers, but if/when I see one going cheap I'll be getting it for completion, and to make sure samples are in the archive!

And if I attend the fair next year I'll try to remember to pay more attention to Tactic's stand and see what else they've come up with; of a figural nature.

F is for Follow-up - Ackerman & Tactik

Just a couple of quick follow-ups to stuff posted about a month or so ago.

 

Ackerman - Battle Squad Army Playset

When I'd finished posting all the recent Chinatroops (which got spread over three or four posts), I was left with a scan of a card; I've collaged it with its set contents as if it were on the rack! And I think it means the two little jeeps weren't from the same set, I just photographed them in the same sequence.

 

Tactik - TMNT Foot Soldier

Picked this up to make four out of five, just got to find a Raphael to make the set - only a matter of time! And someone has sent more TMNT's to the blog - for another time!

H is for Heroes in Half-shells

Back in the late 1980's when these guys first picked-up momentum (and kick-started the modern graphic-novel moment (in the English language that is; the Europeans were - of course - way ahead of the Anglo Saxons on that one . . . bigoted Brexit idiots!), I'd just got out of the army and was living in Aldershot where one of those combined head-shop/t-shirt/punk-badge/comic kiosks had both the US TMNT editions and the self-censored TMHT version . . . our kids weren't to be influenced by Ninjas apparently, they had to have 'Heroes' . . . go figure!

Carded Leonardo and Michelangelo, the figures are about56/60mm, but as they represent cartoon anthropomorphic turtle Ninja warrior monks who live in a sewer and allow themselves to be trained by a giant rat, I'm not sure that their being a few millimeters taller or shorter than your favorite figure-size is much to worry about!

I picked them up in a non-chain clearance/pound shop in Aldershot the other week, three of five, the missing figures being Raphael and a 'Foot Soldier'. And this gets Finland in the tag-list again!

Donatello in his blister and a line-up of the three, I've been back to see if I could get the others, but it's clear I got the last three of an end-of-line thing! Still - three-quid for the trio? I bet Forbidden Planet had them at  +/- a fiver-each whenever they were 'high street' retail stock!

The cards that came with them made no sense; nor did the all-languages/no language graphical instruction sheet! There seems to be an element of having to give your figure away if you lose at a round of 'Top Trumps': madness! There's a video on-line that might make it clearer. . . no, I haven't and I won't be, I'm a collector, not a thrower-away of good figures on the turn of a card!

These are nice sculpts, well painted, in a tactile material, if you see some, get them, put them on the shelf next to your JIM Napoleonic's, Timpo swoppet 'Great Helms', Marx beach babes and Cherilea Mexican bandit, they all represent the same thing - Childhood.