Shimmer and Shine: Genie Friends Forever (game review)

Have a Shimmer and Shine fan? Check out the Shimmer and Shine: Genie Friends Forever cooperative game from Briarpatch (University Games). Being a cooperative game, the game requires all players (up to 4) to work together to get to the end. No one person is a loser, all winners or try again!

Each player gets a magic carpet, selects their character as their playing piece, and utilizes a spinner to determine movement. There is also a token that gets flipped, so your kids might just learn a new skill! (My kids had no clue how to flip a coin before this game.)

Storage of the game is easy, provided you have a container to keep all the pieces together. We just use a sandwich baggy for all of the player pieces, token, and 32 jewels.

Spinner, cardboard coin for flipping, magic carpet, and playing pieces.

Counting only goes up to 3, so for those children just learning to count, it will be easier than some other games I've reviewed. In fact, recommended ages are 3 and up! To start, all 32 jewels are placed on the castle.

Jewels are on the castle and we're ready to pick our playing piece!

No reading is required for this game except for the person reading the rules the first time around. The game is two-part. You start out on the start space on the first half of the board (the side with the castle). You spin to move, and each space means something different:

Jewel Space: You select any jewel you wish from the pile on the castle and place it on your magic carpet.

Genie Space: You select a jewel from the pile to give to another player.

Wish Space: You flip the token in the air. If it says "Oops", you remove a jewel from your magic carpet and put it back in the pile. If it says "Boom Zahramay!", you take a jewel from the pile.

You stay on the left side of the board until all players have one of each jewel on their card. This is where the cooperative part comes in, as players need to look at all the cards to determine which player they give a jewel to (usually the one with the least amount of jewels).

Squiggle gives me a pink jewel

If you have your magic carpet full, you still play while others need jewels. You can give a jewel you get to another player since you can only have one of each on this half of the board.

All 4 jewels acquired, ready to move on!

When all players have one of each jewel, you all move to the magic carpet spot on the second half of the board to continue game play!

On this half of the board, the goal is to fill the jewel spaces on the bottle before all 6 oops spaces are filled. The spaces have slightly different meanings on this half.

Jewel Space: You still collect a jewel from the pile and place it on your card.

Genie Space: You select a jewel from your card to give to the player of your choice.

Wish Space: You flip the token, but if it lands on "oops", you place a jewel from your magic carpet card onto an oops space on the board. If it lands on "Boom Zahramay!", you place a jewel on the matching shape on the genie bottle.

3 jewel spaces are filled on the bottle

You have to encourage your little ones to think about which gems they should be taking from the pile in this half, as you want them to have the gems they need to put in the bottle. If they have to give a gem to another player, you want them to have enough of the needed gems to give to a player that might not have that one so they can use it if they land on the right space.

We did it!

Sometimes you get lucky and get very few "oops" flips. From the winning picture above, you can see we only had two! We aren't always so lucky, however, and sometimes we can't get the jewel spaces filled before the oops spaces.

This game is very colourful, and movement is easy since counting only goes to 3. This makes it easy to maintain the attention of the younger children. It can be frustrating for those who haven't learned how to flip a token or coin yet.

She's ready to play again!

The only thing my kids were unhappy with was not being able to do anything if they landed on the magic carpet space. You can always adopt the rule that they spin again if this happens, though. That way they don't feel like their turn was skipped.

Shimmer and Shine: Genie Friends Forever would make a great gift for birthdays or holidays, and can be found purchased for around $20. Be sure to check out Areyougame.com for this game, and many other great games!

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff was sent this product for review in exchange for my honest opinion. This did not influence my opinion of the product in any way. All opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own.

Hoot Owl Hoot! (game review)

Another great cooperative game is Hoot Owl Hoot! by Peaceable Kingdom. This game involves more strategizing than Count Your Chickens! does, and the way the game is set up encourages the players to work together.

Like Count Your Chickens!, Hoot Owl Hoot! has the instructions printed on the inside of the box lid. Not only does this prevent you from losing them, but it saves trees, too!

 

The game comes with the game board, a pile of cards with different coloured circles or suns on them, a sun token, and 6 owl tokens. 

To set up the game, you shuffle all the cards and deal three to each player. You place your owls on the start spots (number of owls played with vary depending on the difficulty level you want), and the sun token on the sun start spot. The goal of the game is to get all the baby owls back to the nest before sunrise.

While you can hold your cards in your hand, it is suggested to leave them face up for everyone to see so you can work together to plan the best plays to get the owls back in the nest. 

When it is your turn, you pick which colour you want to play from the 3 cards in your hand. If you have a sun card, you have no choice but to play that card and move the sun token one spot over to the right), then draw a new card. If you are playing a colour, you can move any owl of your choice to the next circle with that colour. If you are playing a green card and there is an owl on the next two green spots, you would play on the first available green spot (so you’d skip a lot of spots). If there are no more spots of that colour available, the owl gets to move into the nest. This is the sort of thing that makes this game all the more fun when working as a team, and precisely why everyone being able to see the other players’ cards is beneficial.

A yellow card was played allowing the owl on the Start 4 spot to move a good distance to the next unoccupied yellow circle.

Another yellow card was played and an owl from the Start 2 position was moved 3 yellow circles because the first two were occupied.

When all the owls make it to the nest, you win. If the sun gets all the way to the far right spot (aka: if the sun rises) first, the game is over. The beginner level is only played with owls on the first 3 start spots, the intermediate level is with owls on the first 4 spots, and the challenge level is with all 6 owls in play.

Hoot Owl Hoot! is recommended for ages 4 and up, up to 4 players, and should last about 15 minutes from start to finish. No reading is required for game play (provided someone can read to explain the rules at first). Great game for colour recognition and cooperative strategizing.

You can purchase Hoot Owl Hoot! for approximately $16 at select retail stores like Target (they carry Peaceable Kingdom games), or online at Amazon.com.

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff is responsible for the content of this post. Hoot Owl Hoot! was purchased by me and all opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own.

Count Your Chickens! (game review)

One thing we noticed when we first started playing board games with the kids was just how competitive Bobble was. That doesn’t really come as a surprise to me since I’m a very competitive person, but the display he put on when he lost a game was absurd. When he won, he’d boast and brag. I get it, he’s proud he won. Still, getting him to understand sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t was hard. The games from Peaceable Kingdom help eliminate that sort of issue.

Count YourChickens! is a cooperative game where everyone works together to win. You either all win, or you all lose. Nobody is better than anyone else in the end, so you all feel good, or you all are determined to try again to succeed as a team.

Although it might be a minor thing, I love how the instructions are on the inside of the game box. The lid contains the instructions so you can't lose them, and there isn't excess waste from adding more paper to the game packaging. Save trees, and don't lose your instructions at the same time!

Count Your Chickens! has 40 little chick chips or tokens, a mother hen game piece, a spinner, and the board. To set up, you put the mother hen at START, and you scatter the chicks all across the board (anywhere except in the coop). The goal is to get all the chicks into the coop before the mother hen gets to the coop.

Actual game play sees everyone playing as the mother hen. The players take turns spinning, and each spin determines the number of chicks placed in the coop. If you spin the cow, for example, you count the number of spaces you move to get to the next cow space. If you moved 4 spaces, you put 4 chicks in the coop. If the space you move to shows a chick atop the animal (in this instance, a chick atop a cow), you get to add one extra chick to the coop. If you land on the fox, you take a chick out of the coop and place it back on the board. If you get all the chicks in the coop before you reach the end, you win! If you don’t, better luck next time.

Bobble got a dog for the first spin, so he added 6 chicks to the coop because the first dog square was 6 spaces from the start.

The great thing about this game is that there is no singled out player, and you can use the set up to teach lessons about nature. I like that you can add story to it if you want to give a reason why the chicks should be in the coop. Maybe your kids are learning about predators, so you could pretend there was a hawk spotted. Maybe it is feeding time and the chicks need to get back, or it’s getting near dark and they need to roost. If you don’t want to, then you just have a fun game that helps children learn to count. No reading is required for this game (provided someone can explain the instructions the first time to the children).

Count Your Chickens! is for children ages 3+, for up to 4 players, and takes around 15 minutes to play start to finish. You can find Count Your Chickens! at select retail stores (Target carries Peaceable Kingdoms games) or online at Amazon.com for approximately $16.

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff is responsible for the content of this post. Count Your Chickens! was purchased by me and all opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own.