Actor Neil Patrick Harris Has an Amazing Way to Sharpen Your Brain

Here’s a riddle: What word in the dictionary is spelled incorrectly? If you said “incorrectly” you might be a whiz at Amazed, a $30 game co-created by actor/writer/producer/magician Neil Patrick Harris. The foldable, double-sided board offers 16 variations of a labyrinthine course. Players compete by solving brain teasers, puzzles, and codes to win. The roll of a numbered, six-sided die determines how many spots you move, and the color of the square you land on determines the difficulty of the question you have to answer. Greens are easy, blues are medium (“What has a neck but no head?” “A bottle”), and reds are mind-melters. Players have 60 seconds to answer; get it right, and you can roll again and attempt another challenge in the time remaining.

• In Codenames, a deductive card game, two teams compete to make first contact with all their secret agents, while spymasters give clues. $15.