Hoyle Puzzle & Board Games

Title: Hoyle Puzzle & Board Games
Publisher: Encore
License: Commercial
Website: http://www.encoreusa.com/product.aspx?ProductID=79564

Every year or two, Encore comes out with a compendium of games under the title Hoyle Puzzle & Board Games. It is huge collection of puzzle, logic, board, and word games. Each version adds a few new items. The big add in the 2008 version is The Incredible Machine. If you have not played TIM, this one alone is worth the price of the collection.

A word of warning to Mac users. On the box, it claims to have both a Windows and Mac version. However, a few games, TIM being one of them, only come with the Windows version.

This is a well done collection. Each game has simple but pleasant and effective graphics. The interface is well done. The audio and music is well done. There is an interface to create an avatar for yourself, and the opposing computer players have a bit of personality which you can turn off. The whole package has a professional look and feel to it.

I have played previous versions on my travel laptop for years. They had always a good way to kill a few in flight hours. Sadly, the Windows version of the 2008 version requires the DVD to be in the drive in order to play. This limits the collection appear. The Mac version does not require the DVD.

A new fun twist is the 2008 edition is "Hoyle Bucks". By winning games and completing levels, you earn Hoyle Bucks. You can then spend this hard earned money to buy additional features such as different background music.

One interface flaw in the collection is the lack of in game help. When you click on help, the program minimizes and brings up a 138 page pdf file. You then have to hunt through to find help for the game you are currently playing.

Here is a quick run through the games included in the collection. For some games, due to trademark and other legal issues, Hoyle uses a different name. I am going to use the common name such as Scrabble instead of their name Wordox.

Board Games: Backgammon, Checkers, Chess, Chinese Checkers, Othello.




Nothing special here. The quality of play is quite low, but still probably challenging for kids learning the games. Adults should stick to Zillions of Games.

Logic Games: MasterMind, Sudoku, Mahjong, Blackbox.

The basics, again nothing special. Better version of each are available elsewhere, but it is still to have them. I hope some day someone would a include a version of Grand MasterMind.

Family Games: Battle Ship, Dominoes, 2 Maze games, Parcheesi, Yahtzee, Sorry, Rummy Squares.

Computer versions of some standard family board games are included along with computer opponents. Some of these I haven't see computer versions of else where.

Word Games: Anagrams, Crosswords, Hangman, Word Search, Scrabble.


The collection of crossword puzzles is quite nice. The puzzles were taken from Dell Magazine. They are pretty easy, and give a nice little ego boost to logophobes like me.

Time Wasters: Tetris, Solitaire.

Like you need more time wasters.

Others: The Incredible Machine, Pool, Runes of Avalon


These are new in 2008 version. TIM is a puzzle game classic. It is one of the best games I have ever played. I enjoyed playing it again here. Pool is a simple virtual pool game. It is not bad. Runes of Avalon is odd mix of match 3 and role playing. I would put it in the same genre as Puzzle Quest not nearly as good.