Pengoloo

Pengoloo is a fun memory game by Blue Orange that always entertains us.

This game is for ages 4 and up for 2-4 players.  We have been playing it at our house since my son was 3 and have played it with other 3 year olds, but please be careful as some of the pieces are small and can be swallowed by accident so always be there while playing games with young ones like this.

The game roughly takes about 15-20 minutes although we have had much shorter and longer games as well.



Game Play

Set up is simple, make a three by four grid with the wooden penguins and hide one coloured egg under each penguin.  Set up the icebergs around them, one for each player.  First person to get six penguins wins.

Playing is actually more complicated then it looks. On your turn you roll two dice with the colours on them. You state which colour you are going to find first, for example red, and then you lift a penguin to either find a red egg, in which case you can take that penguin and egg and place it on your iceberg.  If you can't find the colour you claimed then you have to place the penguin back over the egg and leave it in the grid.  For little children I let them look under any two penguins and they don't have to claim colours first as that can be harder for them. However by the age of 4.5 my son could easily understand and do this so we play it properly now.

The other aspect of this game that I love is that you can steal penguins.  If you can remember that someone has a blue penguin (see lower picture) on their iceberg and where it is you can choose to lift that penguin INSTEAD of lifting a penguin in the centre. This is occasionally hard for the youngest players as they think its snatching, but as they get older you can add this in and honestly in a four player game it is the only way to win as it is really hard to get six penguins without this game mechanic.  I love this part of is as we have had some kids come over who aren't great at remembering the grid but they are very good at remembering what others have taken so basically it is an alternative way of winning for them!

Review

If you can't tell I really like this game, well I do.  I like that is is a memory game with more mechanics involved then just matching and memory.  I like that I am introducing the general game mechanic of messing with others in a game but hopefully, in a friendly way so that everyone understands that it is just a game.  There are a lot of older games that we own where you can really mess with other players so I don't want my son sheltered from this and then surprised when later on he is affected by others.

Other things I love about this game - it is entirely wooden and all the pieces feel nice and sturdy. We have yet to break a nose off any penguins and that isn't for lack of trying. Some of the paint has rubbed off but I feel that is just normal wear.  Sometimes my son just plays with the pieces in a winter penguin play sort of way and this is one of the only games where I am not worried that cards might get wrecked or ripped etc.


Where to find it

As always you can usually find it online but also I know our Friendly Local Games Store (FLGs) usually has it in stock as well.  Alternatively you can buy it directly from the supplier here at Coiledspring Games.  It retails for around £25 and considering the wooden pieces I think that is worth it, but definitely you can find it cheaper some places.

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Petits Magiciens

Petits Magiciens is a Haba memory game about little wizards and magnets.  I adore this game but basically it is really only available second hand as I haven't seen it published in a while.  However Haba have a lot of memory games and they are really all good, so owning one is enough and you can find others like this but perhaps without the gears and magnets.


This is a really simple game for 3 and up though even I find it hard as the gears spin and the items you need to remember can move!




Game Play

Game play is incredibly simple, you roll the die and move the wizard that many on the picture track. Then whatever item you land on you try to find under the wizard hats using a magnetic wand. Each hat is lovely and has a mini magnet in and well made.  If you succeed in finding the item you get a star, most stars at the end of the game wins.

If the die is rolled an it lands on the plant symbol the gears move one quarter turn to make it harder for everyone to remember where stuff is!

A thought out aspect of this game is that there are three wizard hat colours so if the gears spin you can still try to remember where things are, for example on the blue gear under the red hat is the bat etc.


Review

As with all Haba items I have come across this is beautifully made and thought out. I love everything they make really and basically if you find something in their range that sounds fun you will most definitely enjoy it.  The only thing I don't love about this game is that the gears stick a little and so for very young children it can be frustrating.  However like I said this isn't really available to find anymore so if you look at other Haba memory games they don't have gears as often and so you will probably be fine with those.

Sorry I am reviewing a game you can't get easily - we just love it here too much not to include it!

Robot Turtles

Robot Turtles is a lovely programming game for kids by Think Fun.  The game says four and up but you should be able to play with a three year old as well with help. Important abilities for children to be able to play are: playing a card, knowing colours and waiting their turn. Aside from that it's simply using a turtle to capture a gem of the matching colour.

Robot Turtles is great because you can start very simply and add difficulty in a few different ways: increasing the number of cards you play per turn OR adding obstacles OR  both!

Game Play

You start with a board and set up based on the rule book as to roughly what "level" you want to start. This tells you where to place the gems and any obstacles you may need from the start. Each player has a coloured turtle and needs to get their turtle to their gem to win. First player to the gem wins.

The fun bit of this game is that you move the turtle with cards that move for example: forward, left, right, turn 90° etc. This aspect is the programming side of this game. A very simple version of play is just using one card at a time per player so children (and adults) can see immediately what they are asking the turtle to do. 

To make this game more challenging you can ask players to pre-set a run of 3 or more cards before "playing" or running the program, just like simplified programming, funny that.  Currently my son can do 4-6 cards without obstacles or 4 cards with obstacles.

The only challenging part of this game for adults is that one adult/older player needs to be the computer or controller who "runs" the program following the cards correctly in exact order they were placed.  When my son is ready to play his program I need to run it through, which means he can't stop a mistake from happening. I think older kids can definitely be this controller person. But I only warn about this as it's easy for littler kids to want to be the controller and stop their program part way through and fix any mistakes- which sort of defeats the point of the game.

A further way to add challenge to this game is to add obstacles that the kids have to go around or get through to get to their gem.  There are three main obstacles pictured here and they are all fun to play with!

Review

I love this game as it's a board game about programming and so many programming games are screen based. I don't always want him to be on a screen but that doesn't mean I can't satisfy his desire to do logic activities. This game is really perfect for anyone really as it is fun even if you don't like programming that much and the rules are beautifully thought out and written.

I also love that I can make it easier or harder based on my mental capacity or child's desire that day. Sometimes we even make the turtles get the gems and return home to make it even more challenging - something that isn't in the rules.

You can easily find this online or possibly at your local game store or toy store. I noticed also that you can find it at GAME which might be a useful place to look as well for it.  It retails for around £22-25.  We found our complete at a charity shop that sold games so were lucky enough to get it for less then £10, its really worth looking on ebay or second hand selling for kids games as there are lots you can fine there.  Just check it has all the pieces first (usually you can find out how many pieces a game has from either their own website or Board Game Geek summaries)