First kids game I am writing about HAS to be Dobble. It is published in the UK by Asmodee games and at this point it has many different themes including Star Wars, Cars, Kids and Beach versions but they all play in the same way.  In some countries it is called Spot It.

Basic play is speed matching. There are five game choices and all of the games are the players trying to get the most cards or the least cards compared to everyone else.  My favourite is called The Well where all players start with a hand of cards facing down. There is one card in the middle that everyone tries to put their own card on. The trick of this is that if players are moving fast shouting their matches the main "well" card continues to change so this can be really hard for other players to spot their own matches before the card is covered. The object of this one is to be the first player to get rid of all your cards.  There is another version of this game in reverse where the main pile of cards is in the middle and everyone is drawing from that - where the object is to get the most cards.  See simple!

All of the cards have pictures and not words so really you can play this game in any language. When children don't know the word for everything I ask them to point and often they learn new words as we go. My son now knows what a treble clef is because of this game (as there is one in the game and he asked after one game what it was).  Fantastic right - fun and learning!

When I am playing with kids 4 and under you have a few choices. 1) You could invest in either a character Dobble (many ones available) where the kids recognise each character and so therefore find it easier to find matches.  However these Disney ones do tend to cost a little more as they are copyrighted  2) You could buy Dobble Kids. This version is great for kids as it has animals that are easier for them to recognise quickly. There are also less pictures on each card to make it playable by younger children. I like this game as you could make it harder later on by adding a fun home rule that you can only get a card if you say - make an animal noise - now isn't that fun!  or 3) You can buy normal Dobble and just play what I call pairs. This is basically offering only two cards up at a time with your child. Letting them find them match then as they get used to the pictures and deck speeding up a bit. For example the first time my son played it was very slow and he won all the pairs. Later on it was more like 50/50 with him winning the pairs. And now that he is 4 we can play at a reasonable speed with him sometimes winning and sometimes loosing.  This I believe has helped with the speed aspect of Dobble (but the kids version would help with that too) so actually now overall we can play the other games and his speed has increase - though we still need to slow down a little for him and not just claim every match before he gets a chance to look.

As you can tell I absolutely love this game and I can't think of a situation where I would be playing with kids, adults, teens where I wouldn't break this out if we wanted to play something quick and fun. 

If you have a child who rips up cards or you worry might there is even a Dobble option for you - Beach Dobble.  There are a few less cards but it comes in a nifty blue mesh bag and all the cards are laminated.  At our house this Dobble is my son's entirely as I don't worry what he will do to the cards (he has even used them for train tracks before) and I know he won't destroy them.  Equally we have had other children chew on them and they have been fine, which would be great if you are playing with one child while having a young baby on your lap who wants to mouth things.

Plus all the Dobble that I know of (except Beach Dobble) come in a lovely round tin. Who doesn't like a cute tin I mean really!

You can find Dobble at most Friendly Local Games Stores (FLGS) and often over the holidays at: Waterstones, John Lewis, Menkind, Entertainer and online.  I have seen prices range but basically it is around £11-13 depending if you buy it online or in a shop.  Here is a link to a FLGS store if you need one absolutely now without looking very hard :-)  Dobble - Eclectic Games