Parents' Choice Award Winners: Fall 2012

The Parents' Choice Awards have been described as the toy industry equivalent of the Academy Awards. Each quarter, the Parents' Choice Foundation announces the latest winners. Games can be found among the toy awards, and while most of them are marketed specifically to children, several are great options for casual gamers of any age. Here are the casual games that stand out to us.

Gold Award

• Indigo - Collect gemstones by building paths and transporting them along the paths to exit points around the board.

Silver Award

• Asara - Build the most, highest, and grandest towers you can by purchasing different tower sections from the marketplace.

Recommended Award

• Trifusion - Place tiles to match colors and build the largest continuous color area you can.
• CUBU - Get rid of all of your cards by matching number and color sequences among chaotic box shapes.
• Spectrix - Complete sets, runs, or a complete spectrum of color to get rid of your cards and score points.
• Iota - Place lines of cards that are either similar or dissimilar in regard to color, shape, or number.

Approved Award

• Flash Point: Fire Rescue - Cooperate with other players to reach the victims in a burning building and bring them to safety.
• DiceAFARI - Collect sets of animal photos by rolling the dice and selecting the best route to take on the photo safari.
• Array - Get rid of all of your cards by connecting common colors on the round(ish) cards.
• Farmageddon - Plant, fertilize, and harvest crops to earn money and use action cards to help yourself or hinder your opponents
• Wits & Wagers Party - Take your best guess on the numeric trivia and bet on who has the closest answer without going over (seemingly very similar to the original Wits & Wagers)

The full list of award recipients can be found on the Parents' Choice website. If we overlooked some good casual games from the list, let us know in the comments!

Full disclosure: the author of this post is the designer of DiceAFARI, winner of a Parents' Choice Approved award.