Documentary omission – the material absence of a document – does not, of course, nullify Indigenous experience, its generational transposition through oral history, art and song – or its value to modern history. Around the edge of the board is a typical board game style path for players to work their way around based on throws of the die. At each square though players are asked to do something related to the symbol tiles.

Game overview: you have 60 seconds to memorise the position of twelve symbol tiles; the symbols constantly swap and change positions; you have to find symbols, name them, swap them or test other players; the winner is the last player left in the game. When you're shopping educational toys for your child, the first thing to consider is the age of the toy. Educational toys should be age appropriate, otherwise they will not be helpful in developing skills or learning concepts.

Conversely, they may get the easy job of swapping the positions of two tiles (for example, A and F), or two tiles of their own choice. As well as these, players may also be able to ask others about the locations of certain tiles (or the tiles of certain locations) or have to name two or as many as three mystery tiles/spaces for a reward. The box contains the playing board, 12 symbol tiles, 12 covering pieces, 4 elephant playing counters, 28 life cards and dice. The 12 symbol tiles include 3 blue tiles, 3 green tiles, 3 yellow tiles and 3 red tiles. These feature four number tiles (1, 2, 3 and 4), four animal tiles (Dolphin, Fr og, Ladybird and Lion) and four fruit tiles ( Plum, Apple, Strawberry and Lemon). But what do you actually have to do? I hear you ask. Well – that bit is relatively simple. In theory at least. At the start of the game the symbol tiles are all covered up and placed around the inner square. They are then revealed to players who have 60 seconds to try to memorise where they all are. That doesn’t sound too difficult to start with. Play I plan to include Baffled in a future blog post on 10 great memory games, similar to my recent post on 10 great visual perception games.

The symbols themselves appear on 12 different tiles and what they are, and the colours are important. The game contains the following: Despite the general game play being the same, there are also quite a few smaller differences between the two versions of Baffled. Both have an elephant on the box, but the 2018 Cheatwell games version majors somewhat more on the elephant theme with each of the four coloured playing pieces bearing a picture of an elephant. In the 1991 Spear’s Games version there are just four coloured pieces, one for each player. The contestation of the Australian historiographical space especially in relation to dispossession, white land grabs and widespread massacres, underscores tensions between the documentary (which has downplayed injustice, violence and cultural appropriation) and the veracity of Indigenous means of recording the past. Many crimes against Aboriginal people, much appropriation of their culture and property, was not documented – yet we know by other means what happened.

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This version of Baffled was published in 1991 by Spear’s Games. I know that board games over the years become somewhat recycled, but normally a search on the bible of board games (AKA Board Game Geek) shows this up, but in this case Baffled was only listed there as having been published by Cheatwell in 2018. Baffled – the similarities I asked my daughter what she thought at the end. She said she was ‘looking forward to playing it when the schools are closed for coronavirus’. I’m sure she can’t wait for the schools to close, the little monkey. We love finding new games that are suitable for the whole family so when I was asked to review Baffled by Cheatwell Games I couldn’t wait to get started. Baffled is for 2 to 4 players and is suitable for ages 8 to adult.