Gamepuzzles is Kadon's registered trademark name for its product line of original tiling sets and strategy games. The sets are uniquely designed to include both solo solving (puzzles) and interactive, competitive play (games).
SOME LOOK LIKE PUZZLES
Kadon's specialty is the creation and development of geometric mosaic sets — where a set, moreover, contains all the different combinations of a certain theme. The simplest such set is familiar to most people — dominoes.
Kadon does it with permutations of shapes and colors. With such sets you can create visually striking graphic images, evoking the look of an M. C. Escher or Vasarely painting. This is where math meets art in a highly playable form.
The two major types of Kadon's combinatorial sets are color-matching tiles and polyforms, where all the different shapes of a certain type are included. The challenge is to match the tiles by color or to fit the shapes together into larger, very beautiful patterns. A tour through Kadon's catalog will show you the amazing variety of such sets that nature's geometry provides.
Sensory learning
Playing with sets like these is great for kids, too, because it gives them a direct and fun-filled hands-on experience of visualizing shapes and forms. "Spatial visualization" is one of the skills educators recognize as valuable to develop in a child. "Manipulative" sets are the ideal way to have a child learn through play. The sensory experience of touching, handling, moving pieces about into desired patterns is the natural way for the mind to build its knowledge about the world. The Montessori system is based on these same principles.
Kadon gamepuzzles are used in many schools and by many home-schooling families. The "joy of thinking" makes learning more fun. And being creative and feeling one's mind working well is also good for building self-esteem.
Systems thinking
Our "combinatorial" puzzle sets further develop systems thinking, understanding structure and relationships, which are the very important ways the mind works naturally. That's why all ages enjoy playing with Kadon gamepuzzles. "They make you feel smart," and "Our family has so much fun with these," is the way customers put it.
Friendly competition
The competitive games you can play with these puzzle sets are of the "friendly" type, and create interesting visual effects as the tiles are joined or maneuvered during play. The aesthetics are amazing.
SOME LOOK LIKE GAMES
Kadon also makes boardgames with unusual visual designs and intriguing methods of play. Many of the boards have strikingly beautiful artistic symmetries, like kaleidoscopes. We call them our Kaleido-MatrixTM boards. They can double as art objects on the wall.
Generally avoided are games whose objective is merely the direct annihilation of the opponent's pieces. Our search is for non-predatory themes that let players feel good about playing even if they don't win every time.
It is our belief that games are microcosms of the world at large, of striving for results. At this point in history, where the greatest human collaboration is needed to achieve triumphs like landing on the moon and creating a World Wide Web, the games that enshrine war-like themes have outlived their usefulness.
Conflict resolution through means other than mutual destruction is what games should be about.
Non-hostile competition
The Kadon philosophy is to embody civilized forms of the adversary art, with non-hostile competition that allows each player to strive for the best result without having to harm the opponent. Players get the satisfaction of using their ingenuity and of finding their skills and insights improving with each play.
Social benefits
Playing games is great social entertainment for family and friends. Kadon games run the gamut from the most casual game of chance that provides lots of laughs (The Royal Game of the Goose) to intense and complex pure strategy (most of our Abstract Strategy Games section). Sharing the fun with people you care about makes it even more enjoyable.
We want our games to be enjoyed by all ages, from kids to the most avid game lover and strategist. There's something here for all of them.
Games of chance are kept to a minimum to give you the maximum freedom of choice of action. Where chance is part of the game, it is as an adjunct to your strategy, not the controlling factor.
Puzzles on a grid
Boardgames are usually played with pieces (pawns, markers, stones, etc.) that are placed or move about on a board or grid. Many elegant solitaire puzzles can be constructed that explore relationships and processes on a grid. Most Kadon game books include a variety of process or positional puzzles of ascending levels of difficulty, in addition to several competitive game formats. Test your wits on these puzzle challenges, and you may find your game skills improve as well.
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Seemingly simple
Yet, complex beauty and grace
Endless challenges
--a haiku by Robert Gore
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