The Genius Star is a logic game for kids where the goal is to fill a Magen David shaped board. It gives at least 165,888 ways to make a Magen David. This is Lazarus’s second game from 2020, for which he won the title of ‘Rising Star Inventor of the Year’ at the US toy industry awards last November.
The Genius Star was also named as ‘The Best puzzle game’ at the American Toy Retailers Awards in 2020.
As an Oleh, who moved to Israel in 2006, his game holds a special significance, “The game reminds us that with all our differences and whatever our starting point we can always work out a way to come together”.
Each player must fill their Magen David shaped board, made of 48 numbered triangles. Seven dice are then rolled which decide where triangular ‘blockers’ are placed, players then must use the 11 colored pieces to fill the rest of the board.
What seems like a simple task is surprisingly difficult, but there is always a solution Lazarus says, “People can’t get their head around the fact that there is always a solution”. He explained that to make that possible it had taken him 3 months and he even had a computer program written to test all the possible variations of the puzzle.
Lazarus’s second game ‘Bee Genius’ is expected to arrive in Israel in early 2022, while he adds he has multiple other games on the drawing board too.