School’s nearly out and London is raring to sit around the fire playing Scrabble. But the brightest sparks are upgrading their toys.
This year, the best way to play is smart: from games on your Amazon Echo to high-tech Pictionary, it’s time to fill your stockings with cheeky coding robots and next-gen Jenga.
Throwback Thursday
Nostalgic toys have had an upgrade. Firebox sells a Nintendo Game Boy Watch featuring Super Mario Land alarm sounds (£19.99) while Prezzybox has a pocket-sized game controller with hundreds of eight-bit games to take you back to your childhood (£14.99).
If you want to get competitive over board games this Christmas, Massdrop sells a Scrabble keyboard for tallying up all your points (£127), while Beasts of Balance is a hi-tech Jenga: a physical stacking game that links up with an app on your phone — add new building blocks and a virtual world will evolve on your screen (£69).
Meanwhile, Amazon Echo Buttons turn your smart speaker into a next-gen gaming hub: ask Alexa what games you can play with your buttons to hear the full list from anagram games to Trivial Pursuit (£19.99).
Screen time
Forget getting pen marks on the sofa, SketchParty TV is a high-tech drawing game that lets you play Pictionary on your iPad or Apple TV (£4.99). Play with up to eight family members and watch your teammates scribble in high definition — no more excuses that Grandma’s forgotten her glasses.
Mattel’s Scene It links up with your TV to test your movie knowledge (£25) while Sony’s Knowledge is Power game is for trivia addicts with a PS4: connect via the phone app and control your on-screen avatars to be the first to answer the question correctly (£7.99).
Hands on
Snaak is a high-tech fidget spinner: a series of 64 interlocking cubes that can transform into billions of possible configurations from geometric designs to robots — the ultimate toy for big kids who want to keep their hands busy under the Christmas table (£11.99).
If you’re into making things, Makerbuino’s DIY Kit comes with all the tools to make your own games console (£69.95) and Kano’s Computer Kit will teach you to code, build a computer and hack it with 100 step-by-step challenges (£99.99).
LittleBits award-winning Droid Inventor Kit pairs with your phone to teach you how to code, Star Wars-style (£104), while Makeblock’s mBot Robot Kit lets you transform your Lego pieces into a coding robot (£199).
Hot bots
Boxer is an AI robot that interacts with you by responding to your hand movements (£44.99) and Evo’s app-connected bot teaches you code games (£79). And Sphero’s little sphere is like a pint-sized AI pet (£40).
For serious robo fans, Apple sells a connected battle-bot, the MekaMon Robot V2, that pairs with your phone and reacts to your movements as a real-life video game character (£249.95) while Anki’s new robot Vector is a bigger, brainier version of last year’s best-seller Cozmo.
Using AI he can read the room, tell you the weather and announce when the timer is up on the turkey (£199.99). He’ll even take a photo — no selfie stick required.
