Socken Zocken (Haba)

Socken Zocken

Socken Zocken is yet another game by HABA that is cute and enjoyable, however it isn't one of my favourites.  I seems to have limited replay-ability for a speed matching game (considering we have been playing Dobble for like 3 years now this one will not last us this long). It is playable to larger numbers (up to 6 players) and good for young children but it is a racing game so everyone playing with the children will need to slow their own racing abilities down, which I always dislike having to do, which is why this game is not in my top 5.

Socken Zocken plays in about 10-15 minutes for 2-6 players age 4 and up, but I think a 3 year old can definitely play with a bit of help. To me this seems more like a game I would want my 5 year old to play with other kids his age but he isn't' that keen on this one so its unlikely to ever happen.


Game Play

Very simple, all the socks are in the box. All together all players put their hands in the box and try to make pairs of socks. If they get 5 pairs of socks first they grab the little sock monster and shout they finished. They then get a little orange clothes pin for getting the pairs, all the socks go back in the box and time for another round of sock matching.  Three clothes pins wins the game.  See super simple.


Review

I do think this game is better off with all the socks out of the box on a table or maybe in a larger box as I can just see the cardboard game box getting torn with six pairs of little hands digging around in there. However taking all the socks out and spreading them on a table does make it easier so you should know that before doing it.  As always with all HABA stuff the quality is lovely, cardboard sock pieces and the monster and pins are painted wood.

I also really like that the socks are quite difficult to match making this game much more fun for adults too. However this difficulty added with the speed pressure is one of the reasons my son doesn't like this game.  He likes matching and he likes speed but not like this for some reason. Possibly not with the added pressure of everyone's hand in the box at the same time.

Ways I would fix this game for us is we put all the socks on a tray on the table and race to still get 5 pairs, but really it would be better to have a larger box. Although I wouldn't want a larger price tag so price-wise this game is okay. Like I said not our favourite and not as bad as some (Monopoly!) so still definitely enjoyable. We will keep it around for a while if only just to have something to play when younger siblings come over.

Farmini (Loki)

Farmini

Farmini by Loki games is a little kids tile placement game. It is useful because it teaches mechanics that will be in more advanced games my child will play like drafting, tile placement, risk/reward and resource decision making. However it is also very simple and can easily be played by the 5+ age range it states. In fact I would argue it could be played from 4 and up as well. Farmini plays in about 20 minutes with two players and can be played with up to four players. Basically its a nice game we enjoy once and a while.

There is even a cute little farm inside the box that you put all the animal tokens into until the animals are needed in the game. However I do wish the theme was just a bit more interesting, or better art work as while its lovely and cute I can't get excited about farming. Where as there are games with similar tile placement (Carcassonne for example) where farming is much more interesting, although that is not a kids game and costs significantly more.


Game Play

Farmini requires a little set up which my 5 year old struggled to wait for, so that was annoying. Set up is finding the starting "farm house" tile for each player and putting the four starting tiles in a row next to the shuffled deck of the rest of the tiles.

After this game play is simple, choose one card from the four available and add it to your farm. If you choose a animal you take the token from the game box and add that to your farm.  Add another card to the card drafting area so that four are available for the next player, simple right?!

Elements of the game include: building your farm, getting animals, enclosing corn and dealing with wolves.  To build you farm you just follow simple rules of grass must touch grass and fences touching fences.  To get animals you must have brown "animal" spots available to put the animals in, then if the animals stay to the end of the game (see wolves) you get 1 point per animal whether or not the animal is enclosed in a pen fully.  Enclosing corn is an interesting part of the game as you do not score for any corn not fully enclosed in a fence and you also don't score for any corn in the same enclosure as an animal (animal eats the corn) so this is a way you can get a lot of points if you are careful in your farm tile placement. Each corn can be worth 1 point at the end of the game if it is enclosed with no animals.

Wolves are where this game is very cute, it adds a risk/reward element to the game. Basically each wolf has a picture of an animal on their card that it scares away. If you have animals on your farm that are not enclosed all of the animals of that type run away when the wolf shows up as one of the four cards (immediately).  This means that later on in the game if there have already been lots of wolves you can take the risk not to enclose animals because the likelihood that a wolf will show up is less and therefore you will score for animals not enclosed without having to waste time enclosing them. 


Review

I do think the starting farm house tiles could have had a different backing too to make them easier to find, however because in a two player game you shuffle these into the deck I also don't know how practical that would be for game play. But the searching for the starting tiles is a little annoying.

Saying that the game play is good and whether or not my son wins is really based on actual decisions he makes as he plays, which is great for teaching him about strategy for future gaming. This game is very light and you will enjoy playing it with your kids. They can grow as they play as well learning to make better and better choices that allow them to win. Out of the first 5 games we played: we tied one, I won three and he won one. So really he still has a lot to learn about choices in the game but I like that he can grow with this game a little. 

I am very mixed about this game as I like the elements of gaming it is teaching my son but for the price the art quality just isn't as good as some HABA games (game piece quality is great though). Loki is new in the children game world and while I love their parent company (Iello) I just don't feel like this is up to the standard they usually have.  There could have been masses more artwork to pull me into the "farm" theme or another theme all together that lent itself to more basic cards. They also could have included another element to the game that allows for more advanced play so that you get a game that grows more with your child. Right now as is I feel like we will grow out of this game by the time my son is 6, so if we had had it when he was 4 we would have only gotten 2 years play out of it. In comparison that is true of some of our HABA games but some we have had and will have for 3-5 years which means they offer a much better replay-ability element.  Price-wise though we paid £13 for it so for two years of play it is a good choice, I think its more that there are £13 HABA games that I just like better. Possibly in our house this has more to do with how many games we actually have!

This game is easy to find at my Friendly Local Game Store as well as online. Enjoy it!

Labyrinth (by Ravensburger)

Labyrinth

Labyrinth is one of the first games of strategy that I have played with my son where the game is very balanced for children as well as adults.  It plays 2-4 players and takes about 20 minutes.  It was created in 1986 and as been a best seller for a very long time. There are also junior versions of this game which have less and larger tiles to make moving the labyrinth slightly easier for younger kids.  This game is recommended for children 8 and up however I play it with my 5 year old.  I think easily you can skip over the junior version unless you have younger kids and you want your children to play together instead of playing with you helping them out.

There are also now many themes of Labyrinth so check these out if you want one of those to get the one you desire. I love our original copy but occasionally I wish we had the Harry Potter one, however I really don't need both so we will stick with the original one.


Game Play

This game requires a little bit of set up. The game board has fixed square labyrinth pieces and then enough labyrinth pieces to fill the board in plus one extra.  These tile pieces are placed in the labyrinth for set up in a random order. The extra piece is how the labyrinth is moved throughout the game. All over the labyrinth there are images of the treasures which correspond to the 24 treasure cards your wizard must land on to be able to win the game.

Each player is given a number of cards with treasures on them, divided by the number of players. In a four player game all the cards are used, with each player getting six. When we playing just a two player game get eight cards each to make it more enjoyable. Children playing the game are encouraged to have all their cards face up and they are allowed to land on their treasures in any order they choose.  Whereas adults must have a face down stack of treasure cards and are only allowed to look at one at a time. This balances the game very nicely between adults and kids. My son playing like this often wins now so only half of his cards are face up and the other half will be face down to allow us to increase the difficulty of the game for him.

Labyrinth is a racing to get your own treasures and get back to your home colour before any other wizard.  The players move the labyrinth squares on their turn to be able to move the wizard around it and land on the tiles with their own treasures on it.  The active player takes the labyrinth piece from where it has been left by the previous player, then that player slides one row or column of the labyrinth using that square. After the player moves the labyrinth they can move as far as they desire as long as the path is clear.  If the player lands on one if their card requirements then they can turn that card over, if not they wait until their next turn to be able to move the labyrinth again. There is only one massive rule when moving the labyrinth, you cannot move the row that the extra piece was taken from (there are more specifics to this so see the rules). This means that you cannot just move one row back and forth and so if someone pushes your wizard in a direction you don't like you can't always fix it in one move, it might take a few turns to fix your position.

This inability to just move one row back and forth makes the game a nice challenge and teaching players to look at the larger picture of the labyrinth is really interesting to watch how they go about achieving the goal of landing on their various treasures.


Review

If you can't tell I adore this game. It has a lot of subtle strategy and challenge when playing with a child but even more when playing with an adult where you can do things like wall each other in or screw each other over.  You cannot help messing with other players as you play and I like the fact that it isn't done in a "take that" fashion more as just part of the ever shifting labyrinth.  I dislike games that screw over other players for the sake of it, whereas in this game you might do it, but not necessarily on purpose (although you can do it on purpose as well if you desire).

I love that this game is teaching my child a lot about spacial reasoning and perception. Understanding things like looking at all his cards and not just picking the nearest one but maybe selecting the one that has the first easiest route, or the easiest route to the next treasure card. This game offers many many layers of thought and strategy for adults and kids hence why it has been around nearly as long as some of us parents! In comparison to games like monopoly I think hands down this one is considerably more fun and enjoyable by all, and the winner can truly feel like they worked towards their own win and not just rolled dice randomly until they won (you can see how I feel about monopoly there!).

This game is available everywhere! High street shops sell it, friendly local game stores, online, second hand - everywhere. Just check if you are buying it second hand that it has all the pieces because if you are missing even one you can't play it, there are ways to replace missing pieces but its hard so really check the box before buying one used.  I nearly bought one that was missing three pieces and that would have been a very sad day when we got home and couldn't play it!

Magic Labyrinth

Magic Labyrinth 

Magic Labyrinth is a simple and lovely magnetic finding game that can be easy or very hard.  It is by Drei Magier Spiele and is about 10 years old.  It plays 2-4 players and takes about 20 minutes.

I really like this game and play it plenty with my 4 year old.  However it has very small ball bearings and they are magnetic so this game is definitely not one to be played without serious supervision of young children.  The game says its for 6 and up but this can be played younger and I think younger children love the magnetic aspect of it - but DO NOT play this game without supervising them as it can also be incredible dangerous if any pieces are swallowed.


Game Play

Each player is a little wizard looking for their items that have been lost in a maze.  There is a bag of items (the small blue tokens) from which at the beginning one gets chosen and then the players race to that token represented on the maze map.  The first player to reach the token image on the game board gets to keep the token.  Getting  five tokens wins that wizard the game. 

This seems really simple but the game is all about the set up and how the magnetic aspect of it works.  To set up you take the board out and rearrange all the wall tiles (see image on right) making sure that you do not cut off access to any one square (the rules explain this with pictures very well) then you put the board back on and spin it so you can't remember where you put the walls. Finally you attach your wizards to your "home" corner and off you go with your turn.

One turn is rolling the dice and moving that number of spaces (between 1-4) without hitting any walls underneath. If you hit a wall your marble dislocates from your wizard and you must return to your home corner to start again.  The point of this game is not only to get the tokens but to memorise the Labyrinth underneath so that it gets easier to get to each token.  When you play initially you put about 18 wall tiles in the game, however there are 24 available and trust me when I say that having all 24 can be really hard sometimes!

The only aspect of this game I don't love is the fact that the rules state you can "pass" other wizards but don't really show you how to do that, as one or two times when we have done this both magnets get stuck to one wizard or one disconnects by accident.  This isn't ideal and I just wish there was a better way to pass each other.  The rules allow for passing and in a 4 player game this is entirely necessary. Maybe we just haven't worked out the finesse of it :-).


Review

This is definitely one of my son's new favourite games as it combines racing with magnets (two of his favourite things). It is easy to set up and play and very easy to teach. We have played with other five year old and they get on well with this game as well.  The hardest part of this game I think is the magnets as if we had any younger children around this game would just be unsafe - so only really play this game during young person nap time or when all your kids are of an age they don't put things in their mouth.

In general the quality of the game is lovely as well. The wizards are nice and hefty wooden pieces with felt bottoms so the slide really well. The maze is easy to put together and the magnets are exactly strong enough to work well through the board and also disconnect when they hit a wall.  We bought this game second hand and have had it about a year with no quality issues (and who knows how long the previous owners had it). 

You can easily find this game from any friendly local game store or from Coiled Spring Games. Its around £40 new but I think worth every penny because of how many times we have played it already!