Bloxels ($49.95; available now) With its colorful squares and simple-to-understand game board, the video game–creation platform Bloxels grounds digital game design in physical, tactile creativity. Color-coded cubes on a board represent pixels during character creation or squares on a map for level building. By snapping a picture of their design using Bloxels’s free app, players can turn the physical scheme into a digital world to explore. When developing a level, each cube color represents a building feature, such as land (green), enemies (purple) and coins (yellow). User-created maps, made up of multiple individual levels built on the game board, can become complex games that can be explored for hours. Players can share their designs via the app and use the coins they earn via gameplay to buy other players’ designs.
Jennifer Hackett
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Everyone feels like a kid when they attend the annual American International Toy Fair, held in New York City’s Javits Center. Seemingly endless colorful booths full of the next big thing crowded the center’s multiple floors for the four-day show held February 13–16. Bot-building kits shared floor space with flavored edible bubbles, quadcopters and adorable plush cats. Scientific American played with some of the coolest science and technology toys of 2016. Here’s a selection of some new fun gizmos that caught our eye.
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