DaVinci’s Challenge – This game uses the ancient Flower of Life symbols to create patterns and pictures to outsmart your opponent. (Briarpatch)

Ingenious – Players place colored tiles on the hexagonal board, scoring points, blocking opponents’ tile placement and trying to protect themselves from being blocked by their opponents. (Fantasy Flight Games)

Loot – Set sail for an exciting adventure of strategy and skullduggery in this captivating card game. The player with the most loot rules the high seas. (Gamewright)

Niagara – Players move their canoes up and down the Niagara river to pick up gemstones. The player who gets the most gems wins the game. (Rio Grande Games)

Zendo – An inductive logic game in which the Master creates a rule and the Students compete to be the first to figure it out by building and studying arrangements of pyramids. (Looney Labs)

Mensa Select winners are chosen annually at the Mensa Mind Games® competition. Members of the high IQ society spend a weekend playing and rating new board and card games. The five games that rate the highest are named Mensa Select and may display the Mensa Select seal on their packaging.

“You don’t have to be a genius to enjoy the games that win this competition,” said Jean Becker, chair of American Mensa. “The Mensa Select seal lets consumers know that intelligent people enjoy playing the game. We rate the games on originality, aesthetics, value, and playability, so the Mensa Select seal indicates games that are fresh, challenging, and well-designed.”

This year’s Mind Games competition was held April 15-17 in Tampa, Fla. One hundred sixty-five players from every corner of United States were challenged by the 51 game entries. During the event, Mensa members also filled out more than 4,000 comment cards, which will be returned to the manufacturers. Suggestions from the comment cards are often used to improve the games.

Based in Arlington, Texas, American Mensa is an organization open to anyone who scores in the top two percent on an accepted, standardized intelligence test. More information about the organization may be found at us.mensa.org. More information about Mind Games may be found at mindgames.us.mensa.org.