miQube

miQube is a lovely thing. All wood. Colorful. Sculptural. But that doesn't explain how playworthy it turns out to be.

Playworthy as in something fascinating, challenging, inviting. Like a puzzle, but like a game, too. Like a toy, even. Playworthy as in something that can be played with in enough different ways to make you want to make up your own. Playworthy as in something closely approaching Major FUN.

There are 13 different pieces, and a die. All but one of the pieces is a different combination of 5 cubes. Each is 6-sided, each has faces of different color, depending on orientation. The other piece is made out of 4 cubes. It also has 6 different colors. As does the die, which is made of one rounded-corner cube. All wood. All solid wood.

You don't have to use everything, but you can purportedly fit all 13 pieces into a cube with every face a different color. It's not quite as hard as solving a Rubik's Cube. And the instructions describe 4 different games you can play with your miQube and 1, 2 or even 3 friends. And once you've played all 4 different games and discovered their differences, you can't help thinking about making up a 5th game. Your own. Because of all the different ways you can play with the pieces.

Lovely, lovely thing. Most worthy of a position of honor on the family coffee table. Most conducive to several many hours of happily challenged playtime.