Winners of the ToyAward 2012

An independent jury has selected the ToyAwards for the International Toy Fair in Nürnberg for the ninth time. 227 companies had entered a total of 371 new products.

Category Teenager & Family (over 11 years)

Talat, Huch! & Friends Hutter Trade GmbH

Golden ornaments against a noble black background, a mysterious name – Talat stands for the magic figure of three – and the minimalist, well designed tokens will thrill young and old strategists. The players move three different sizes of towers with three, four and six corners on a three-part board. Both the number of corners and the size of the towers determine whether an opponent’s tower can be beat and therefore Talat does not only promote strategic, but also geometric thinking. The board’s multi-dimensional set-up – each player moves on two fields – means that he must always watch two opponents at a time.

Click on WIN.

Call for Papers

4th Annual Center for Ancient Studies Graduate Conference
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
Friday, March 2 to Saturday, March 3, 2012
Submission Deadline: January 7, 2012

Crowned Victor: Competition and Games in the Ancient World

The graduate students of the University of Pennsylvania seek abstracts for the fourth annual Center for Ancient Studies graduate student conference. This conference aims to explore the theme of competition in the ancient world. Competition was a key component of many aspects of life in the ancient world and was found in areas people in the 21st century might not expect. We plan to focus on the role of competition and its associations with society at large, be it in the form of games or sports, interactions between members of a community, rivalries between communities, or the way culture and literature channeled competition. Our goal in presenting this conference will be to compare how competition manifested itself in the disparate societies of the ancient world and highlight similarities across cultures.

If you are interested in presenting a paper, please submit a 250-word abstract for a 15 minute talk by January 7, 2012 including your contact information (including name, institution, and e-mail) to Arthur T. Jones at ancient@sas.upenn.edu. Speakers will be notified of the status of their submissions by January 15, 2012.

For additional info., go to News.

Starting on the 30. Oktober 2011, the Schwäbisches Bauernhofmueum shows an exhibition with more then 300 of the games of Rudolf Rühle, “Mit Glück und Strategie Spiele aus zwei Jahrhunderten.”

For the address, click on Bauernhofmuseum.

To date, we have inventors are coming from all over the US, but also the U.K., Belgium and Israel – be a part of the global inventing community’s gathering to hear wish lists, participate in professional development workshops, celebrate your own at the Toy and Game Inventor of the Year Awards, the TAGIEs, and enjoy private meetings with domestic and overseas companies all in one convenient place.  

Some inventors have inquired as to how it will work with the private meetings on Saturday and Sunday following Friday’s day long presentations. The first week of November we will send out a list of inventors and their contact information to the inventor relations people in the companies listed below and then we will send you a list of the inventor relations people and their contact information. Then it is up to both parties to set up meetings on Saturday and Sunday in the offices we have set aside for this purpose. Only inventors signed up for the Inventor Summit can take meetings in these rooms. 

Click on Gamers Alliance to read about the latest offerings from the world’s game makers.