Sky Magic
Overall Rating: 7/10
Age: 6+
GLAM Age Range: 4-8
Number of Players: 2-4
Playing Time: 20 min
Publisher: Peaceable Kingdom
Complexity: Low
Available At: Amazon.com
Quick Take: A cooperative game that is pretty tame, this is basically Candyland for slightly older kids. The main plus for this game is that my daughter loves it - sometimes she can be very hesitant to try new games but she really likes the fantasy theme of this one and that it's cooperative and the fact that there aren't any big bad guys out to get you. However, only get this game if you're willing to adjust the rules, the odds of winning as the rules are written are close to 50 to 1 against you. Ouch. However, we made an easy adjustment that makes it much more fair for the players and works well. We win at least half the time we play now.
How to Play: Get the five enchanted characters home before you run out of magic spells. The characters start out in the center of the board and must take a cloud path back to their home. On each turn, a player rolls the die and either moves the number they have rolled, draws a magic spell card if they roll a magic wand, or draw a storm card if they roll a storm cloud. The magic spell cards have helpful actions like doubling a roll or getting rid of a storm cloud on the board while the weather cards cause you to flip flaps on the board or to cover flaps with storm clouds. If a player is located on a cloud that no longer exists on that spot if you flip the flap over, they are sent back home. It's a cooperative game so any player can move any of the characters, it's best to focus on moving one at a time so the wind flips have a lower chance of impacting your game play. Get all the characters home before the magic spells run out and you win the game!
Variations: The game doesn't end when the Magic Spell cards run out, the game ends when the Weather cards run out. There are only 9 Magic Spell cards and they help you while there are 15 Weather cards and they slow you down, it makes more sense for the game to end when those cards run out anyway. Our kids love creating new game rules and this game is pretty basic and the game as written is virtually impossible to win, so this is actually a big win in our house. Different characters could have different special abilities, you could easily add in new rule cards, for a creative kid this game could be a lot of fun.
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