Aftershock!
© 2007 Educational Insights
Great for classrooms, Aftershock is a spatial reasoning game that challenges one to four players to race to stack 18 colored blocks, before a timer sets off the shaking base. Players press the Go button and the electronic speaker announces the next color to be placed on the wobbly base before time runs out. After you place your block, you must press the "Block the Shock" button to stop the timer. If you're not fast enough, the base will shake, knocking down the blocks. There are three levels of game play, with different amounts of time. Nick (12) played this game and liked the concept. It required him to think carefully about where to place the next block so that the tower would be balanced. Also, when playing against his brother, Daniel (8), Nick could strategically place his block so as not to give Daniel a good place to place his on his turn, causing Daniel to knock over some of the blocks. We noticed that although the base shakes when time runs out, the blocks do not always fall off the base, so they could just continue the game. This may be due to the fact that they never got the blocks stacked very high. The game requires three AAA batteries (not included).
$30, Smart Toy
Teaches: logic, problem solving, spatial reasoning
CTR Rating: 84%