Race to the Treasure
Overall Rating: 9/10
Age: 5+
GLAM Age Range: 4-7
Number of Players: 2-4
Playing Time: 20 min
Publisher: Peaceable Kingdom
Complexity: Low
Available At: Amazon.com
Quick Take: One of Peaceable Kingdom’s top games, I love that this teaches kids how grids work in a very easy and fun manner. This game feels intuitive and is very simple to play. However, some children (my children) seem to be afraid of the ogre cards used in this game and it’s rather frustrating because they obviously aren’t meant to be scary. We would play this game far more often if we had to beat a cuter creature to get to the treasure.
How to Play: Cooperative game, work together to create a path down to the treasure before you draw too many ogre cards. You need to collect three keys along the way. There is also an ogre snack card that you can use to remove one ogre tile from the board. Ogres do not have to collect any keys, I guess the idea is that if an ogre finds a treasure chest they are able to smash it open. The game is in grid format and you have dice that are only used in the beginning in order to determine the locations in which you place the key tokens. Like all Peaceable Kingdom Games, they earn many gold stars for their virtually indestructible game pieces that don’t require shuffling and are basically small pieces of sturdy cardboard.
Variations: You’re only supposed to have to collect three keys before progressing down to the treasure spot but if you want to alter the difficulty of game play you could make it more or less. And you could always take a few ogre cards out of gameplay if you wanted to guarantee victory for a young player.
Similar Games To Check Out: Latice, Labyrinth, Draw 4 Dig for Dinos!, Outfoxed!, Blokus