Rallying around a flag

As the spirit of revolution seems to weaken, at least from the media reportage perspective, the World Cup demanded attention. In a space of under a month, I’ve been faced with flags of countries I’d never have been able to identify earlier. Flag It from the Dr Wood Challenge Centre, is selling at a surprisingly affordable ` 199, and confirms my flag identification capability hovers between abysmal and embarrassing.

If you’re looking for games that stimulate the mind and provide a ready learning framework, you can’t go wrong with Dr Wood Challenge Centre titles. Flag It covers 24 countries’ flags. Being able to identify them isn’t what the game is about. That’s merely an aside. Playing four levels of difficulty, with three game boards and 12 grid cards, this is the quickest-to-learn game from Dr Wood, I’ve ever come across. Read the simple instruction sheet, and in a moment, you’re ready to play. What happens thereafter, is another matter!
Each of the four difficulty levels has six challenges. I tripped up at level 1, challenge 1. Each grid card with a single rectangle punched out, is to be placed on a 5x8 flags grid. Challenge 1 required me to use all the 12 grid cards, revealing each of the 12 country flags just once. An agonising half hour later, I was still trying to figure how to avoid repeating Italy, India, and Canada.
Flipping around the double sided game boards and grid cards as instructed at each level, varies the degree of complexity. Challenges sound innocuous :six flags shown twice each/three flags shown four times each/one flag revealed by all 12 cards, and so on. These are devious challenges that promise hours of deliciously spent time.
Sadly, Dr Wood has taken to manufacturing through a Noida-based vendor. The inside of the box could pass for an Indian sweets packet, complete with a silver matt-finished compartment. But these irritants do not stand in the way of Flag It being a must-buy. I might not have figured out how to work the challenges yet, but I can identify the flags of Lithuania and Spain.
— The author may be contacted at arup_kavan@yahoo.com [1]