Connect 4 (Game Review)

While looking for something in the basement, I noticed our games that we set aside. Games like Scrabble, Boggle, and other games we had played before having children. We don't have the time for Scrabble much these days, and Boggle will likely come back out as Bobble learns to spell. One game caught my eye though: Connect 4.

 I cannot believe I forgot we had Connect 4! Not a board game, and not a card game, I thought it would be a great option to introduce to Bobble. It was something different, it involved strategizing, and it was fairly quick. He had recently learned how to play tic-tac-toe, so I thought he'd grasp the concept fairly simply.

He is quite smitten with the game. Well, to be fair, he is quite smitten with any game right now. Still, he loves this game, and I love how quickly we can play it.

The newest version of Connect 4 apparently has red and yellow discs/checkers. The base is also slightly different, just containing the legs on the side (like the original version had). I prefer our version, as it prevents the discs from going all over when you release them. I have a 2 year old and a 5 year old, I don't need help losing pieces!



The game comes with 21 of each colour disc, the slider bar, the grid, and the two legs. It's easy to just put it together, and this is made quite apparent by the fact Bobble does it himself every time.

We are not the kind of parents who are going to go easy on their children and let them win, so a skill game, like this, is not an easy win for Bobble. That's not to say that we are mean about it. Especially while teaching the game, we will explain our move, and what we are hoping to accomplish. I'll say that I put a piece in this place because I only need one more piece over in this spot and I will have four in a row and win. This helps him see the logic. He frequently loses to me via the two-way trap where if he blocks me from winning, I play atop that disc and still win. It's totally a set up.

Playing against his uncle

You might think that sounds mean, but it's taking longer and longer for me to win because he's getting better and better. He's also beaten me with that exact same strategy. He learns quickly!

Playing against his uncle

Connect 4 is a great game, but it is only a 2 player game. This is not a big deal for us since it's so quick, we just take turns. It's great for those times where there is only one other person to play with him, as some games aren't much fun with only two people. This is a great alternative. It says it's for children age 6 and up, though that is obviously not a necessity if your child isn't going to put the pieces in their mouth and they understand counting.

Beaming after the first time he beat his daddy.

You can find Connect 4 at any general retailer for around $10. There is also a travel version (which I've never played) that runs about $7. I imagine Bobble would love a travel version, but I cannot foresee the pieces not getting jammed into seats and lost. Maybe if they were older.

No reading is required for this game, though being able to count to four is required.

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff is responsible for the content of this post. Connect 4 was purchased by me and all opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own. 

Blink: The World’s Fastest Game! (Game Review)

Bobble loved UNO so much that it was all he wanted to play. I love UNO, don’t get me wrong… but it’s nice to change it up a bit. I searched around and finally came across a game called Blink. I had never heard of it, but not only did it seem to be similar to UNO, but sounded like it would always be a fast game. This was a perk for me since playing UNO can take a long time if the cards aren’t in your favour. The game is supposed to be for only 2 players, but you can play with more, it just goes more quickly. If you plan on frequently playing with 4 players or more, I would recommend purchasing two decks.

Blink is played like a cross between UNO and Speed. You deal out the cards for a pile, making certain each player has the same amount. With two players, you would deal 30 cards to each person, and that pile is placed between you on the table. Each of you place one card down in the center of the table, and draw three cards from your pile to be in your hand.

Example of a game set up with the "hand" on the table for the picture

So, unlike UNO, you have two discard piles and your draw pile is only yours, nobody shares it. You can only have 3 cards in your hand at a time. This was really helpful since Bobble has small hands and can’t hold many cards at once. When you’re ready to play, you both flip over your single card in the middle of the table and start matching. The first person to get rid of all their cards from their hand and draw pile wins.

Example of the cards (colours, shapes, numbers)

Blink cards have different shapes, numbers of shapes, and colours. There are no actual numbers shown on the cards. You can match by any of these three mediums, so if a card with 2 blue stars on it is face up, you could play a card that has stars, a card that is blue, or a card that has two of a shape on it (example below).

If the 2 blue stars card was turned up, the three cards below it in this picture would all be playable due to shape, number, or colour!

To start out, I had Grandma play a game with me and let Bobble watch. To help him understand how we could play a card when we did, we played more slowly, and would say “Shape”, “Number”, or “Colour” when we played a card. He insisted on playing right away, and he had his chance within two minutes. The game is really, really fast. It might have not taken that long had we not slowed down for him to watch and understand.

We made sure to go quite slowly the first time we played with him so he could have time to wrap his mind around the three ways to match. He didn’t seem to have a problem catching on to all three matching options, but it did take a little time to get used to seeing the number of shapes on a card versus a numerical character.

This game is great for when you have only a couple minutes to play something since it goes so quickly. Since the deck only has 60 cards total, it’s really easy to accommodate for 3 or 4 players since it can be divided evenly for them, you would just have more discard piles to play on in the center of the table. Of course, with 4 players, you’d have a super small draw pile and it might not be much fun. I’ve only played with 2 and 3 players, and I have considered buying 2 more decks to mix together so I have a deck for 2-3 players and a deck for more than 3 players.

I wanted a game a little more challenging for Bobble, and this was a great option. Not only does it bring about more options for matching, but you encourage rapid recognition as well. With younger children you definitely want to work up to the speed aspect, but it keeps it fun as they grow.

No reading is necessary to play this game.

Blink can be purchased at retail stores for around $6.

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff is responsible for the content of this post. All products mentioned were purchased by me, and all opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own.

Sorry! (Game Review)

Bobble is a fan of all games, not just card games. I saw one of the older versions of Sorry! at a yard sale last summer, and I insisted we buy it. It was only $0.50. Hard to argue that price! Up until that point, Bobble hadn’t played many board games other than his Super Why game and Chutes & Ladders. The Sorry! board isn’t as animated or bright, but he didn’t care. He was just excited to learn the game.

Sorry! is a 4 player game that is recommended for ages 6 and up. The basic premise of Sorry! is to get your 4 pawns out of start and into home. The first person to get all 4 pawns into Home first is the winner. The rules of the newest version of Sorry! is quite different, and please keep that in mind while reading this. I am playing with an older version that had the same rules as I grew up playing. In the older version, you can only move a pawn out of start if you draw a 1, a 2, or a Sorry! card. You can only move a pawn from your start and take the place of an opponent’s pawn on the board (their pawn goes back to their start) when you draw a Sorry! card. If nobody is out to use a Sorry! card on, you can’t move. The 2 card lets you move and then draw again. The 4 card makes you move backwards 4 spaces. The 7 card can be split between two pawns, or you can move one pawn forward 7 spaces. A 10 makes you move forwards 10 spaces or backwards 1. An 11 has you move 11 spaces forward, or you can switch places with an opponent on the board. The 3, 5, 8, and 12 cards only allow you to move forward that number. If you cannot move that number, you forfeit your turn.

As you can see, some of the instructions cards have more information on them than simply moving a pawn forward that number. Because of this, I was concerned Bobble wouldn’t be able to play for a while since he can’t read.

… I was wrong.

We would read what the cards said to him when we first started playing, but you’d be surprised at how well he retained that information. He knows what every single card can and cannot do. He cannot read yet, but that doesn’t stop him from understanding the somewhat complex rules (well, complex if you can’t read the instructions on the card!) and even beating us.

The biggest challenge Bobble has with Sorry! is not the instruction cards, but strategizing. He tends to target one person, usually his father, and then do whatever it takes to keep knocking that person off. Even if his dad had just gotten his first pawn onto the board (none in home) and someone else has 2 pawns in home and 2 pawns on the board, he would sorry his father instead. Sometimes that would make the other person win, within a couple turns, but he was happy so long as it wasn’t his target winning.

He’s getting over that novelty of just attacking someone and sabotaging their game play (thankfully, because my husband is really sick of it!), and now he’s considering what might be best for him before he moves. He still tends to move the first pawn he sees instead of looking at all his options, but he’s getting much better about it as a general whole. It took about 2 months of game play before he started trying to strategize versus sabotage.

Classic Sorry! looks different than the one pictured above, newer versions of Sorry! look very different, and the 2013 version only has 3 pawns and some fire and ice power ups. I’ve not played the newer version, though I’ve read that one power up makes a pawn move much faster around the board, the other can freeze them in place. I’ve heard mixed reviews on this, but I’m quite content with this older version of Sorry!... especially since mine only cost $0.50.

Classic Sorry! and the newer version with original rules can be purchased at most retailers for about $20, and the newer version for about $10.

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff is responsible for the contents of this post. All products mentioned were purchased by me, and all opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own. 

Uno! (Game Review)

One game that has gotten a lot of play recently has been UNO. Bobble loves this game, and it has been fun for involving other family members. UNO is recommended for children age 7 and up, and you can play it with 2 – 10 players. Bobble is just now 5 years old, but I think any child that knows their numbers and colours can play if you don’t play super competitively (at least to start out).

If you haven’t played UNO, the goal is to go out of cards first. You start with a set number (varies based on number of players), and you lay down cards one at a time, matching by colour or number. There are special cards like Reverse, Skip, Draw Two, Wild, and Wild Draw Four. When you get down to one card you have to say, “Uno”. If you lay your second-to-last card down and don’t say “Uno”, you have to draw two cards (if someone else notices).

We didn’t make Bobble draw cards for not saying “Uno” at first, but we would make other players draw. He caught on to calling other people out for not saying “Uno”, and we would prompt him when he was down to one card. After he got pretty good about calling “Uno” without us reminding him, we told him that we were going to start making him draw cards for not saying “Uno”, just like everyone else has to. We started by counting to 5 slowly in our heads before we told him to draw two cards, and we also didn’t continue play and looked at him, waiting. This let him know there was something more he should do. As he got really good at that, we would just pause for a second and see if he would say anything before he was forced to draw. Now we just make him draw. It took probably 2 weeks before we got to the point where we would just make him draw if he didn’t say it immediately. Now he tends to say “UNO!” as he’s placing his second-to-last card. He knows. J

This game has been helpful in encouraging Bobble to think about alternate plays. It took a little while for Bobble to catch on to using the cards to strategize, but he caught on to the matching colour right away. We helped him a lot with which cards were best to play at first, and explaining why, or we would play and he would help us lay cards down (and we’d explain why we played that card).

One thing that was hard for Bobble to catch on to was the order of turns after a reverse was played. When you’re just play with two people, it essentially acts as a skip since you’d just get to go again. When you play with more than two people, the order of play actually goes the other way. This confused him at first, but he caught on after a few times.

Another thing that he had trouble with was figuring out how to play cards in his favour (versus just doing whatever he wanted or could do). An example of this would be playing a wild card and naming the colour yellow when he only had one yellow card, but 4 blue cards. This was probably the hardest concept for him, actually. He would have a yellow Draw Two card, but that’s it, and he’d change it to yellow, then play his Draw Two, and have no other cards to play and end up drawing. He’s getting better at this, but he still hasn’t mastered the skill.

The difference between the Wild and the Wild Draw Four cards confuses him a bit sometimes, too. A Wild card can be played at any time during the game, regardless of whether you need to play it or not. A Wild Draw Four can only be used when you have no other options. If you play a Wild Draw Four when you have that colour or that number in your hand, you could be forced to draw cards if someone challenges that play. We haven’t introduced the challenging to Bobble, but we do make sure we ask him if he has anything that colour or any of that number because he can’t play that card otherwise.

You can keep score in UNO, but we also haven’t introduced that concept to him yet since he hasn’t fully grasped the concept of playing whatever is in his best interest. If your children are older, you can always incorporate scores into the mix. I think we won’t be doing that for a while.

This game is great for colour and number recognition, though younger children will need more reminders and instruction with special cards. UNO can be found at most retail stores, and is about $6.

*Please note that newer version of UNO have different graphics on the cards. Our version is older.

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff is responsible for the content of this post. All products were purchased by me, and all opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own.