Match - Lock & Key

Concentration / Match "lock & key" – bending minds!

How do you play "lock & key" match games?

Concentration with asymmetric pairs, aka mixed doubles has you look for, and try to memorise pairs that are not quite identical.

The aim of the game is to find and bag as many pairs as possible, whatever relationship links the two partners of a pair. You may have to identify a picture of Albert Einstein with his famous formula "E=mc2", for example; Romeo & Juliet could be a pair, or Shakespeare, and Romeo & Juliet might be a pair. At the start, all cardboard tiles are shuffled and placed face down on the table, either randomly, or in a tidily ordered rectangle. The starting player picks two tiles and reveals them for all to see. If they match, she keeps them, and takes another turn. If not, she turns the tiles face down again and it's the next player's turn. The games ends when the last remaining pair is collected.

The right mix of luck, strategy, and fun?

Luck: +++oo       Brains: +++oo       Fun: ++++o

As with the classic Concentration, the rules of the lock & key variant are very simple and you won't lose time before jumping right into the game. Games don't take long and you can further cut the game duration by using a smaller number of pairs. The mixed doubles variant of matching pairs expands the classic game through the relationship component that links the pairs together, which can add a whole new dimension to the game. Mates & their childhood sweethearts tends to create more laughs than the more cerebral crystals & their chemical formulas. We urge you not to discount variants like the latter. Training your memory and learning useful stuff is not a bad side effect of sitting down for a quick, fun game. 

Your unique lock & key concentration game: How to make it your own Matching pairs lock & key is the ideal gift for those who like to stretch their minds a little and might just yawn at the classic variant of concentration. Suitable occasions match those of the classic variant, though. For birthday gifts, a popular relationship is built by matching photos with the dates when they were taken. Another classic is past addresses, with the house on one tile, and just a street number on the other; similarly, photos of the first own car are matched with a photo of its licence plate.

Weddings gifts complement two halves of pictures from the couple's past - one half with the bride, and the other with the groom - bring them together! Some time-match pictures of the couple with, say, the house they lived in at the time the shot was taken. Then there are those concentration sets that celebrate the wedding itself, matching fathers of the bride and groom, best maid and man, and - you decide. There are before and after pairs: Of the buffet, the bride, the uncle suited up (before), and with the tie around the forehead (after). 

Photos and matching dates are of course a classic for any occasion, just like photos of the same person or object, one in summer and the complementary one in winter, for instance, or shot from different angles. You may match the total view with a zoomed detail, a technique that's popular for holiday mixed doubles, too. 

Inspired by what our customers create, we are tempted to write so much more. But exactly because of our customers' awesome creativity, there seems to be no need - over to you! Oh, hold on, our inner teacher interrupts: Mixed matching pairs are a powerful learning tool, too, as you match English words with their counterparts in another language.

Made in Germany and the EU

LUUDOO manufactures customised card and board games since 2012. All of our customised games are manufactured in the EU, the vast majority in Germany. We also take care to source our raw materials in European where at all possible and strive to only use sustainable materials, as long as this does not interfere with the quality or longevity of our games.

As you would expect our customised games meet or exceed the safety requirements for toys in any of the markets we sell to.

Please check the SPECIFICATIONS tab for material, print and sizing information for the customised game components for this particular game