Monkey Pod Games Blog

 Today we are dedicating our blog to the wonderful tale of Peter Pan! Most of us know the story written by J.M. Barrie whereby a young boy named Peter Pan is whisked away from his home in London to a magical land called Neverland. There he leads a group of young boys called “The Lost Boys” and lives with his best friend, the responsible girl named Wendy. Peter Pan has many skills but his most impressive is his ability to never grow old. He is the boy who never grows up, the boy who is the youth in all of us, no matter how hidden. He creates magic with his infectious smiles, draws hope by flying through the skies, and defends his clan against the evil Captain Hook.

 The story of Peter Pan was originally presented to adults even though it has now become a legend as a children’s story after Disney’s adaptation. Peter Pan is not just about magic and fighting pirates. It is a story about bravery, being free from the fear of death, about being able to love. It is about finding love and friendship with those you would least expect, when the ones you did expect abandoned you. Most of all it is about finding the innocence and child that will always exist within us if we take the time to find that youth and let it fly free.

 There have been many stories revolving the legend of Peter Pan. Whether it was him as a one week old boy in Kensington Garden playing the pan pipes for the fairies or flying to Neverland with his Wendy and Lost Boys, Peter Pan will always be a figure for us to dream of, a leader of our imaginations and adventures.

Let us be children sometimes and forget all the things we have to deal with. Here we present you with different puzzles that we believe invoke the spirit of Peter Pan and will bring out the youth in you!

First we have the “Glasses Marbles Solitaire”. This is dedicated to the most famous of the Lost Boys “Toodles” who loved his marbles more than anything. Be a Lost Boy and play this solitaire marble game. Just make sure you don’t lose them like Toodles did!

Play the Great Escape. Although based on another interesting fable, this time it can represent Peter Pan saving Wendy from Captain Hook.

Then there is the Diamond Puzzle. Fairies like Tinker Bell can be hard to figure out. But fairies are magical and will let us fly among them with the stars if we are lucky. Like little diamonds, fairies are the magic little beings that live in places like Kensington Gardens. Solve the Diamond Puzzle here!

These are just some examples of puzzles to bring out the child in us. But there are many many more waiting for you here!

Sometimes we get lucky and sometimes we stumble but either way we are always trying to understand what is going on. We take apart each date that we went on and each line we said. Learning from our past mistakes, we map the future carefully hopefully succeeding and finding the love of our life.

So while we are stressing about love and romance, why not relieve some of that tension with a love themed brain teaser.  Here are some of my favorite love puzzles:

 First there is the Heart Puzzle which is a modern version of the very famous tangram puzzle. Here, one has to make tangram shapes as in the original version but now one has to contend doing this with shapes that form a heart. There are over forty shapes to create! This one can be picked up here.

Then there is the super fun Love Test Puzzle! This puzzle is a lot more accurate and fun than pulling the petals off a flower. And you save the flowers too! This puzzle involves a wooden heart with a string going through its holes with a small ball trapped. If you can manage to release the ball, then the answer is: YES HE OR SHE TRULY LOVES YOU! Find your answers here.

Or there is the Star Puzzle. Despite this being the famous puzzle used on the hit CBS show Criminal Minds, it also makes a great love puzzle. There is a great little romantic fable behind it that can be read here. The romance story behind it makes it a great puzzle for the theme of love. Build it for your own satisfaction or present it to the love of your life.

There are tons of puzzles available to get us through those days where love is taking over our thoughts. Why not get through those days with a cool puzzle to relax your mind. Check them all here!   

Love can be stressful. Who here has not sat around thinking “Does she like me?” or “I wonder if he will call me back? Often we obsessively deconstruct our relationships trying to grasp our emotions. Our feelings are hard to understand and the emotion of love tends to preoccupy our mind at an amplified level. We go our whole lives looking for love. Whether on the internet, in bars and clubs, or even on a vacation, we are playing the game. 

The 1960s were a time of counter culture revolution, freedom, groovy times, and an open expression of the mind that did not exist in earlier generations. Back then there existed two cultural icons named Bob Dylan and Steve McQueen. Today we have a fable that merges the spirit of the two. So take off your Birkenstocks, lay back in you bean bag chair, light an incense, put on some groovy beats and enjoy the following story.

A long time ago, there was a young heroic man named Khun-Phan. He spent the better part of his life learning and playing his guitar. He would go around in his kingdom playing music for the villagers but most importantly for his true love. Nang Wanthong was a beautiful woman with big blue eyes that would uplift everyone around her. Her long flowing hair would swish from one side to the other like the tides of the ocean. Nang’s hands were soft like the grass below her feet and when she would place her hands around Khun’s face, a warm glow would rise from his belly to his heart.

All was well in this kingdom. Khun would strum his groovy guitar while the villagers would work the land. The old king who ruled the land was kind to his people and in return they loved and supported him. Things were groovy and in their correct place like the sun and the moon.

Then one day, the old king died. He had fought a long battle with cancer and eventually submitted to his disease. Unfortunately his predecessor was not benevolent. He was not hip and he hated music. He warned Khun to stop playing and to stop loving Nang. He decided that the music was against his regime and that Nang was too beautiful to be with a hipster and should instead be with him. In response, Khun did the one thing he knew how to do well. He played his guitar even more beautiful then he had before. He tried to stick it to the man. To ring out freedom with his strings and scare away the King.

The King heard this beautiful music and got even madder and he took Khun’s father and murdered him. When Khun got back from Nang that day to find his father dead, he also found the King’s guards there waiting to arrest him. He was put into a tall tower. The King’s guards told him that death would be too easy a punishment and that he must spend his whole life in a tower. They also told him that Nang was going to be married soon to the King.

Khun sat in the cold dark tower alone trying to think what to do. He thought and thought and thought and thought. He knew not only his but also Nang’s life depended on him. Then finally he remembered! Khun was such a good guitar player and strummed so hard that his strings were always breaking. To avoid always having to go to a repair shop, he kept a lot of extra strings in his pocket.

Quickly, he took out the strings and tied them together in strong knots. The tower had no bars on the windows. The King secretly wanted Khun to jump to his death. Therefore Khun was able to tie one end to the window and let the string fly on down. He hurried down the string until he got to the ground and ran all the way home where his guitar was waiting for him. Khun knew that if he could get to Nang, he would play her the sweetest song he knew and that it would seal her love for him and then they could escape together

So Khun went to the King’s castle with his guitar in his hand. Khun was now prepared with the tough guy mindset of Steve McQueen and filled with the love found in many of the songs Bob Dylan once wrote. Would he be able to get into the castle, grab Nang and escape? Well that is up to all of you.

Take hold of Khun’s and Nang’s fate. Navigate them through the castle and get them out so they can live together in pure harmony and love. Help them to have groovy times again man! Their fate in your hands begin here!

The version that is helping us be better to the environment and get a break from technology!

Computers, television, video game consules, portable video games, movies, MP3 players that do everything, cell phones, portable dvd players, where does it end?

Technology is great but like everything, it has its limits. Unfortunately it seems everywhere we turn, more and more technology is springing up. One obvious instance is with the game Sudoku. It used to be a pleasurable game played in a newspaper or booklet. Now there are endless websites selling or offering free Sudoku. Instead of being a quiet game away from our technology centric society, it has joined the masses. Now we stare at the screen burning out our retinas trying to solve a very hard Sudoku game.

One of our aims at Monkey Pod Games is to not join the masses! We want to bring leisure into your life that isnt just another technological gimmick. That is why we have created our own Sudoku game!

We have created a wooden Sudoku that is perfect for your home or to take with you on vacation. You still get your classic 9 x 9 Sudoku game but instead of being glued to your computer screen, this can be played in your bedroom, the livingroom, in the car while on a long trip, or wherever you are comfortable.

But we have taken our concept a step further! It is very important for us to do what we can to improve our Earth. We only have one as it is. Most people have ecological footprints 4-6 times the size it should be. By choosing to use our wooden Sudoku version you are doing two good things for the environment:

1) You are not longer having to buy booklets, meaning hundreds of trees do not need to be cut down in order to make the pages for an endless amount of books to be produced.

2)By being able to play the game not on your computer, you are conserving electricity. When we save electricity, we are not using as much oil. When we are not using as much oil, we are saving money both by nation and by globe.

Therefore we highly suggest an investment into the wooden Sudoku game. Not only is it the best way to play the game without harming the environment, it is also just as fun! No more running out of puzzles inside booklets or erasing so hard that the ink on the page starts to fad. This has to be the perfect way to play Sudoku! We would love to hear your thoughts on the subject! Order your own copy here!

A Prince's gift to the love of his life

Our famous Star Puzzle has once again made headlines when it was used on the hit CBS show Criminal Minds. Criminal Minds follows the Behavioral Analysis Unit, a branch of the FBI, based in Quantico, Virginia. In each episode, the characters track down some of the most dangerous criminals. What makes this show so interesting is that it focuses on the criminal instead of the crime.

In the episode Risky Business, Special Agent Pristine, at the end of the episode is playing with the Star Puzzle. The other character named Dr. Spencer Reid, who plays a genius doctor aiding the FBI team, asks Pristine what she is doing. She explains that she is trying to solve this difficult 3D puzzle which has a very romantic story to it. She tells Reid the fable where a prince who was madly in love tries to win over the heart of the prettiest maiden by catching a falling star for her. He climbs to the highest tower in the kingdom and manages to catch it but in all his excitement he drops the star and it smashes on the floor. In a frantic rush and without accepting failure as an option, the prince puts the pieces of the star back together. The Maiden loves the gift and they live happily ever after.

However the genius Dr. Reid does not understand the concept of fiction well and protests that the story could not be true because any star that would fall down towards us would burn up in the atmosphere. Special Agent Pristine tries to explain to Reid that it is just a fable but the scientist minded Reid declares again that it cannot even be considered a fable because it has no moral to it. Pristine responds by saying that at the very least it is a cute romantic story. She goes on to say that the puzzle is almost impossible to solve and just to annoy her more, Dr. Reid solves the puzzle in a matter of seconds.

The Star Puzzle is a fun game to have, tough to solve, but is a admirable accomplishment and looks great sitting on a desk or shelf. Order your own Star Puzzle

For all you know, you might complete it quicker than Dr. Reid. Or if you really want a challenge, we also offer the giant version of the puzzle which can be found in our Extra Large 3D puzzle section.

Wooden toys date all the way back to the times of ancient Greeks and Romans, and they continued to be popular right up through the mid-twentieth century. Wooden animals, trains, dollhouses, and exquisitely painted jack-in-the-box toys were all once popular gift items.

Today, however, you’d be hard-pressed to find traditional wooden games at the toy store. Instead, you might find a Baby Einstein version of an MP3 player, a set of electronic rattles, or a mini-laptop. It’s likely that half of the store is dedicated to characters from popular television shows and movies. And, almost without exception, these toys are made of plastic and contain electronic equipment that allows them to flash, beep, and sing. Toys today don’t resemble what they did a generation ago.

But it is the traditional wooden games that truly allow children to run wild with their imaginations. Wooden puzzles and games encourage kids to engage in creative play while also providing the added educational benefit of improving cognitive and motor skills. Traditional wooden games hearken back to a simpler time, before the decades of rapid technological innovations, to when playing with toys meant using your imagination.

Monkey Pod Games is proud to offer a wide selection of traditional puzzles and games, all crafted from high-quality wood. From Chinese Checkers to Tic-Tac-Toe and challenging brainteaser puzzles, Monkey Pod Games combines quality with durability—without all the electronic bells and whistles.

Browse our selection of back-to-the-basics wooden games and toys – and find the perfect gift!

Are you tired of using the same old gift-wrap? Looking for a new, exciting way to wrap your gifts, instead of using the same shiny bags and greeting cards?

This holiday season, put away that boring old wrapping paper, and place your gift inside the Magic Box! With no handles, holes, hinges, or hooks, the Magic Box appears to be impossible to open. Your friends and family will have to solve this brain teaser puzzle if they want to retrieve their present!

The Magic Box is beautifully constructed from 18 different wooden pieces and makes for the perfect gift-within-a-gift. Plus, the gift-giver gets to watch in amusement as the recipient attempts to pry open the tricky box.

The Magic Box can hold small gifts, like jewelry, cash, or gift cards, and is sure to add spice to your traditional holiday gift-giving routine!