I have to admit, I’m addicted to my smart phone. Before I had one, I never understood why my fiancé was on his phone so often.  But after getting one of my own, I quickly changed my mind.  There are so many apps you can get, you can play games, read ebooks, surf the web.  However, one thing that smartphones are definitely lacking are interactive games.  Nearly every mobile game is single player, and antisocial.

The Codigo Cube trivia game by Four Clowns Game & Toy is the very game smartphones are lacking. It’s interactive, a game you play with other people, on your phone! I no longer have to sit and watch my fiancé play a game on his phone, or vice versa, now we have a game we can play together. You can play with friends, at your home, at the bar, the scenarios are endless.

The game itself works by scanning the cube shown above.  The cube has different colored QR codes on each side. Scan a code, and the game pops up on your phone.  You can pick from 1 to 100 players, and there are three different types of play. Quick Play is quick and easy, it has pre-selected categories, Pick Six lets you choose six categories out of the twelve, and Random Six randomly picks six categories.  Once you have selected which type you want to play, you enter the number of players, type in their name, and select a difficulty level; easy, medium, difficult, or random.  The rules are simple. You roll the cube, scan it, and answer the question. If you get it right, you get to go again, if you get it wrong, it’s on to the next player. To win the game, you must get a question correct in each category.

I liked the game itself, once I got it to work.  When I first got the cube, I had a bit of a hard time getting the QR codes to scan. I have a Samsung Galaxy S2, running android 2.3.6. My phone has an 8 megapixel camera, so it fits the requirements specified by Codigo Cube, found here.  I downloaded the free Codigo Cube Reader app, available on the Google Play store, or the App Store.  With that app, I then had to scan the code to start up the game.

I found that I have to have pretty good lighting in order for the code to scan. While the app lets you use the flash on your phone to get it to scan, my flash was too bright, and only made it worse. At first, I kept trying to scan the cube close up, figuring it would get a better picture that way. I found it was very hard to scan this way, and would take quite a while of the camera focusing and un-focusing before it would read the code.  Finally, I tried reading the cube from a good foot or so away.  And voilà! It worked perfectly. I also tried scanning the cube from a 45 degree angle, and that worked better too.

Once I figured out how to scan the cube, I had a lot of fun with the game. I loved that I could play with other people, or play by myself. I liked the integration of a physical cube with the phone app game. The cube itself is small, about twice the size of a normal die. It easily fits in my pocket, or even my small purse, so it was very easy to bring the game to friend’s and family’s homes, and even out and about. I had fun playing it by myself while waiting for doctor’s appointments.

Don’t have an android phone? I used this game on a friend’s Iphone 4S, and found it worked even better!  The codes scanned very quickly, even in dimmer lighting. It would also work great on an Ipad (Ipad 2 or up, it must have a camera).

I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys a good trivia game, especially if you have an Iphone or Ipad. The questions have a good range of difficulty (difficult was indeed quite hard!), and I played it numerous times and never had a repeat question.  If using android, once you give yourself time to figure out how to best scan the codes with your phone, the game should work flawlessly from there, and be a lot of fun! This would even make a good, small Valentine’s Day gift for any loved one who loves their phone!

Connect: You can connect with Codigo Cube and Four Clowns Game and Toy on Facebook and Twitter

And one lucky reader gets to win a Codigo Cube!

To enter: Fill out the GT form below before 11:59pm EST on 2/11. This giveaway is open to the US and Canada.

Micaela