The weather is cooling down outside, allowing for the family to spend more time together inside. With the Family Matters board game by Better Indeed LLC, you not only spend more time together, but you also get to know each other better.

"Remember when you were a kid?" said David Schoenberger, company founder and game inventor. "Mom would open the front door — after making you breakfast — and say, 'Be home by dinner!' as you sprinted out of the house. Yet somehow you still managed to spend a lot of time together as a family.

"Seems like another world. Today, breakfast is a rarity. Families work harder than ever before and enjoy less quality time. The familiarity past generations took for granted is now a distant dream, what with everyone being so busy, distracted and exhausted. Family Matters was created to bring familiarity back home."

Family Matters invites payers to share stories, discover family trivia, do funny things and creatively explore a "Fake Family Crisis" from new perspectives. An added plus is the winner gets to embark on their own "Weekend Wish," which is any reasonable, family-oriented activity players state at the start of the game.

Bringing the family together with genuine empathy is the "Fake Family Crisis" where players, in character, work together to resolve a hypothetical situation three different ways.

"It can be a very enlightening experience," said Schoenberger. "It's a rare opportunity to approach an emotionally-charged situation without the emotionality that comes with the real thing and develop an appreciation for other points of view."

To play, family members and/or good friends each select a colored peg and take a seat (place the peg) in the family car. Each player takes turns driving it through the town, responding to a host of thought-provoking cards. Once everyone has had a chance to drive the car, it races toward the finish line (Weekend Wish) to see whose idea of family fun will become a reality.

"Families are looking for ways to get closer, and Family Matters makes it fun and easy. Family Matters playfully and painlessly facilitates self-expression and encourages collaborative conversation among family matters," Schoenberger said. "We've been amazed by how helpful families have found this game."

And for the price of a pizza, this game can be enjoyed again and again.

"The value of this game continues long after it ends," said Schoenberger. "First, families get to enjoy the winning 'Weekend Wish.' Second, families can refer to their responses if ever any of the 'Fake Family Crisis' become real. Finally, families can use our problem-solving methodology to tackle everyday issues."

Family Matters retails for $20 and can be played with two to six players that are ages 7 and up. For more information, call 917-822-9449 or visit www.familymattersgame.com.

GET TOGETHER

BoundlessGallery.com helps bring artists and art seekers together worldwide. A new addition is TheArtistFinder.com.

"We see the online marketplace changing from the old guard of big one-stop shops like eBay and Amazon, to a new order where the actual site you buy from matters less than finding the perfect product," said Luke Terpstra, president of BoundlessGallery.com and TheArtistFinder.com. "We exist to support original artists online."

It is a simple and easy site to bridge the gap between all of an artist's Web locations and can be used to synchronize all of that together for free.

On TheArtistFinder.com., members are allowed to list all their online stores where their works are listed as well as their social network profiles. Artists can list works for sale, and simply pay a percentage commission when works are sold through either site.

If looking for that perfect piece, art lovers can browse the sites for free and link to multiple art sales venues.

For more information, visit www.boundlessgallery.com and www.theartistfinder.com.

Maggie Reed may be reached at [email protected]. To find out more about Maggie Reed and other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE 2009