Back in the old days, my brother and I had plenty of fun board games. (Well, okay, once we learned of Atari, and later Nintendo, we had our share of screen time as well.) We enjoyed the traditional favorites, including classic Mastermind. When my kids were old enough, I giddily bought both the full-size and travel-size versions. I think I even got a "challenge" version that includes some additional colors and/or extra pegs for an even more difficult code to crack.
When I saw a representative advertising Mastermind at BlogHer, I saddled right on up with a smile. Since I already had the regular game, I was interested in what else was on the horizon. Her answer: Animal Mastermind Towers.
She and I played a portion of a trial game right there on the Expo floor, but I was most excited when she said she'd send me one for my family to review.
From the outside, the game looks juvenile, even preschool-aged, with its cute illustrations of animals. But this is no toddler past-time. This new type of code-cracking game can be simplified for younger kids, but is plenty challenging. The recommended age is "6 and up."
The "full-strength" game is a series of six pictures per player. For younger or less-experienced players, the sequence could be 4 or 5 animals instead of all six.
Each player positions their animals in a "tower" (a sliding plastic piece) in the order of their choosing, keeping care not to reveal the order to their opponent. For visual reference, copies of the animals used are given to the opponent. Each player takes turns asking a question about the relative position of two animals. For example, "Is your elephant above or below your penguin?" After asking the correct questions and a little bit of luck, a winner is crowned when he or she correctly identifies the order of the animals in the opponent's tower.
Splig is 6. That is the lowest age recommended for this game, and yet he wanted to play all six tiles at once. He challenged his father, and Splig won. In fact, I think he's won every game of Animal Mastermind Towers that he's played. At this point, that is many games.
I really love that this game has the physical cards representing the opponent's animals. Having these manipulatives is much different than playing a brain-teaser on a computer screen. Splig is able to learn organization and logic skills (or perhaps he's just insanely lucky?) as he positions his cards in response to his opponent's answers.
Just like the original Mastermind, this game is simple to set up and to learn how to play, but it takes some skills to crack the code. Splig gives the game two thumbs up!
Be on the lookout for Animal Mastermind Towers, and soon-to-be released Mastermind games in the vertical format starring favorite characters like SpongeBob and Disney Fairies. Happy 40th Birthday Mastermind; I'm happy to see you are still tons of fun!
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Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the game free for review. I will receive no commission or further compensation because I wrote a favorable review. The Amazon links here contain my affiliate code such that if you make a purchase on Amazon I'll get a few cents.
