Assorted board games arranged by skill: one box for memory and matching, one for hand and eye speed, one for floor movem...
The word assorted in this section's name usually reads as a bin for whatever found no place elsewhere, and that reading will cost you the best part of the page. The variety here is variety of skill: one box trains memory, another trains hand speed, a third trains prediction, and so the page runs on. Anyone who understands that order starts buying for what their child needs rather than for the lid that caught their eye.
Assorted means a different skill in every box
Open any box in this section and ask which single skill it turns on, and the answer shows itself inside the first minute of play. A matching box trains visual memory alone, a paddle box trains eye and hand together, a line box trains prediction and blocking, and the electronic box trains a chain of sounds held in memory. Which means that buying three boxes from the same section is not repetition at all, but cover for three different skills in one child.
Memory and matching: the simplest place to start
Begin here if your child is three or four, because matching is the first thinking game where a child beats their father for real, with no going easy on them. The rule runs to one line: turn two cards, hold where they were, try again, so there is no reading, no arithmetic and no long wait for a turn. We carry two of them with characters from a series the young ones know, at ninety-five riyal each, and the two are close enough in format that you should buy one and leave the other for a birthday.
And if you want matching closer to teaching than to entertainment, meaning letter, number and shape cards, their place is educational toys, where they are arranged by what they teach rather than by the character printed on them.
Speed and reaction: play where everyone stands up
The second kind trains the body and the eye rather than the mind, and in it the players stand round the table and race to grab, strike or catch before anyone else. This kind works in houses with several children and spare energy after the afternoon, and it works at gatherings too, where you need a game the guest understands at first glance. Count the noise in, though, because this is not a ten o'clock game.
Movement on the mat rather than the board
Some of what you find here is not played on a table at all. You spread a mat on the floor and everyone plays standing, hands and feet on the coloured circles. A box of this kind wants two clear metres of floor and wants whatever sits around the players moved aside, so if your home is small or heavy with furniture, think again before buying. Ours is a hundred and seventy-nine riyal, the highest-priced box in the section.
Electronic and battery-run: what to watch
The electronic box folds the game and the opponent into one device, lighting up and sounding a note the child repeats and extends until they slip, and it is the best thing here for the car because one player is enough. Watch one detail before paying: the batteries are not included in the box, and they are three small cells you buy alongside it, or you will find the game silent in your child's hand on the night of Eid.
A wooden jigsaw inside a board-game box
You will find a four-layer wooden jigsaw in this section, which belongs in another section really, but shows up here because it is played sitting at the table like the rest. Wood is a real advantage for anyone under four, since it neither bends nor tears nor asks for care, and its price sits above pressed card for that same reason. For jigsaws in their full range of sizes, from a hundred pieces to a thousand, the place is the puzzles section.
Three years against six: what changes
Age labels here spread between three and ten, clustering at three and six, and between those two ages the game changes at its root. A three-year-old plays matching, colours and movement and cannot carry a two-line rule, while a six-year-old begins to understand blocking, planning and waiting out a long turn without protest.
So one box does not serve both ages, and the best thing to do with two children far apart is to buy each of them the skill that suits them and bring them together over the movement box alone.
A box for two children or for a whole class
Read the player count on the lid, then read it a second time, because the boxes in this section differ enormously on that point: some take two only and some carry six or eight. If you are buying for home, the number of your children is the measure, and if you are buying for a school or a family gathering, ask for what carries the larger number so half the room is not left watching. For large numbers specifically, the better fit sits in the family play section or the group games section.
What deserves repeating and what gets played once
A game that ends on a different result each round gets replayed twenty times, and a game with one solution gets played once and then sits in the cupboard. Matching, line and speed games shift their result every round, so they earn their price, while a jigsaw is solved once and redone twice at best before it turns into a memory. Measure by that before every purchase, and if you want what trains the mind over the long run, look through the focus and intelligence section, chess sets and what stays on the table for a whole year.
