KogworkS product reviews

This was a very interesting game with plenty going for it in the 'lateral thinking' market. The aim is to make a chain of cogs in such a way that when you spin your 'base cog' they will mesh and cause the gold cog to spin.
The problem for me was that I kept choosing blue, and this game, being sent for review and being from the 'damaged box stock' from the supplier, was missing one blue cog. This put me at a great disadvantage near the end of the game because I always seemed to need just one more cog.
The concept of the game, as seems to be a pattern with Dr Wood games, is simple at first glance, but the mastery of the game is something that eluded me for the 45 minutes I spent looking for a spare cog. In the end we players made a 'Gentlemans Agreement' that the base cog could be used as a play-piece and was always assumed to be there, meaning as long as the Blue player could spin the next cog in the chain, the base cog was there 'by proxy'.
I still managed to lose every game I played.
All in all, a stunning game with a lot of potential for the brainiacs, engineers and physics majors out there, but little old me will stick to the kiddies games where I have some chance of winning.

This game appealed greatly to my logical and engineering-oriented mindset, with it's chain of interlinking cogs and the ultimate goal - to reach and make spin the gold cog at the apex of the board.

Simple to comprehend, tough to win, and almost impossible to master, this game was a real challenge and amazing fun to play, with some tricky obstacles to overcome. At the end of your turn, in order to continue you must be able to freely spin your base cog. Regardless of how many other cogs can spin, if your base cog is trapped, you're out of the game. The way to prevent your opponent from beating you is to create a trio of interlocked cogs, effectively locking their ability to turn.

A lock of 5 cogs effectively ends the game, we found, because your opponent can only move one cog per turn, thus the second 'lock' prevents their base cog from spinning at the end of the turn used to remove the first one... unless they are very smart and figure out the key to the lock. That takes practice.

Overall, I was really impressed and highly entertained by this game. The only thing that did dull the enjoyment was the missing blue cog that hampered play somewhat. Despite that however, I had great fun teaching my eldest son how to play and watching in awe as he very quickly caught on and started to give me some sturdy competition.