the pointless weblog

These cards are for use with the Augmented Reality games on the Nintendo 3DS. They were released in 2011.

You can enlarge them by clicking on them, if you wish. Also playing the games so they look like they are coming out of the monitor is quite good fun, and basically pointless.

If someone with both a 3DS and a new iPad could open these on the iPad and then put that down on their desk and use that as the card to play the AR games on the 3DS, possibly while someone else videos on it on a nearby iPhone,  it would probably be the greatest conjunction of technology ever witnessed. All while a Guardian journalist liveblogs the event.

These two puzzles (a 12 piece proper puzzle and a 28 card domino set) were free gifts with the Humpty Dumpty Club, a book club for children run by Hamlyn Publishing in the late 70s. I don’t know who drew them, although they’re quite similar in style to the pictures in Roger and the Elephant, which was illustrated by Lesley Smith and written by John Kershaw.

The Zoo dominoes (which aren’t really dominoes at all) were just about my favourite thing when I was a child. I think the only way they coud have been improved is if they were arranged in a spiral, and also the spiral went on and on outwards forever.

If you click on the picture below you can see them all set out along their lovely squiggly-lined glory.

The Humpty Dumpty Club had a few more gifts available, but if I had any of them they’ve been lost somewhere along the line, except for the Roger and the Elephant book. I think I had the Zoo money box from the advert below, but I can’t be sure.

I also had a few books from the club, the best of which was Tiger-Pig by John Ryan.

And that’s all I know about the Humpty Dumpty Club.