Gearhead Mom

Monday, March 23, 2009

Curious George - Hide and Seek Zoo Game

Posted by Missy W. @ 12:21 PM

The folks over at I Can Do That! Games asked me to review a game from their new Curious George line of games. Sy is so bananas for the Busy Diner game, I figured I could take one for the team and welcome yet another toy with batteries into the abode. And so a few days later the Curious George - Hide and Seek Zoo Game - The wild game of hiding, seeking, and zoo-keeping fun! arrived at our doorstep.

What does the game do? From the site: “Your favorite monkey is in charge of the zoo and everything is going wild! Grab your “walkie talkie” and get ready: The man with the yellow hat will be calling in to send you on exciting missions all over the zoo. Feed and care for zoo animals, repair fences, and clean up messes. But watch out—when you hear “THE ANIMALS HAVE ESCAPED,” it’s time to spring into action! The other players put on their animal masks and hide. It’s your job to find them. But hurry—the zoo must open on time! Join Curious George for some playful problem-solving and up-on-your-feet hide-and-go-seek fun!”

Sy doesn’t even know who Curious George is (Am I a bad parent?), and she still loves this game.

First of all let me explain why Sy does not know George on a first name basis.  I read those books growing up and I always felt bad for George. He didn’t get to live with any other monkeys and he was always getting busted for, well, being himself. Why should you be punished for being a curious little monkey? Roger has never read a Curious George book in his life, so I guess Sy will be in good company. Anyway, my primate-deprived kiddo doesn’t care one wit about who George is, she just knows that she loves this game. She gets to pick a game to play before bed with just us, her very special big sister time since Baby G hits the sack waaaay before she does. We’ve played Hide and Seek Zoo every night since that game entered out household. This certainly is not a wind-down-before-bed kinda game, so if your child gets revved up and stays revved up, play it after breakfast, not dinner.

Sy was sold on the game before we even opened it up, which is huge since she usually won’t even open a new game. Most of her Christmas presents are still in boxes in her closet. I think she’s from outer space. Either that or she is an HSP (highly sensitive person) like me and doesn’t want/need a lot of new toys bouncing and jangling around in her life. So score one point for I Can Do That! Games for oh so cleverly placing the walkie talkie in a Try Me! location, where curious little monkey fingers are able to take it for a test ride before the box is even opened. Her glee grew exponentially when we opened it up and there were four shiny animal masks awaiting inside. Not that she’d wear a mask. No, no masks for my girl. She will carry one around, but she would chew on glass before she put a mask over her face. She won’t even wear a hat; talk about sensory overload. Regardless, the masks excited her and she always wants us to put them on and act like crazy giraffes.

Since I refuse to read instructions, Roger read them and just sat there for a minute, looking a bit puzzled. Since Sy was champing at the bit to play, I started heckling him about falling asleep on the job. He just kept looking at the instruction sheet and mumbling something about sleep deprivation. I grabbed them impatiently, mumbling something about general husband slackerdom, read through the instructions and then just sat there for a minute. And then started mumbling about my sleep deprivation because I couldn’t quite figure out parts of the game. (To be fair, we are really tired. Baby G simply does not believe in sleeping at night. Come to think of it, neither does Sy. I don’t think I’ve slept more than four hours in a row in almost four years. It makes me feel a bit like I’m walking through life with cotton shoved in my ears, eyes and brain.) Anyway, we decided to just start playing and then re-read the instructions. They made more sense after we’d played a couple of rounds, but I’m just saying, it’s not the strongest part of the game.

When it is your turn, you get to be George and push the walkie talkie and await a message from The Man in the Yellow Hat (MYH), who is apparently circling the Zoo in a helicopter pointing out all the trouble the Zoo is having. In our house, Sy gets to push the walkie talkie for everyone playing and that’s fine with us. The large red button is easy for her to push and she does a little dance every time she gets to use it. It is, of course, LOUD as hell, but the MYH has a pleasant enough voice that I can deal with it. He shouts the instructions to the player very quickly, but the commands are simple enough for my 3.75 year old to comprehend. The usual course of action is that a certain area of the zoo needs help, so you pick a card from that pile, place it in the appropriate area (savanna, farm, polar zone or forest) and then spin to see if you can help. The spinner has categories that match the problem on the cards (clean it, fix it, water, food or help anywhere).  If your spin corresponds with (any) card that’s been placed on the board, you solve the problem and scoop up the card for your collection. The player with the most cards at the end wins. I think I usually end up with between three and five cards at the end of a game, depending on how many people are playing. If it is your turn when the animals escape, all the other players have to don masks and go hide. At this point the walkie talkie is playing crazy loud music reminiscent of the Busy Diner game. The players have two minutes to hide and seek. If it’s only the three of us playing, I’ll take the other two masks and hide them somewhere for Sy to find. She loves coming back and counting out all the hide and seek cards (you get one card for every animal found). Side note - do not run with the walkie talkie during this portion of the event. Sy and I were playing it tonight and we both dropped it. The thing splintered apart and a part of the yellow casing broke off. I popped it back together and it works fine, but I have a feeling it wouldn’t take too many more beatings like that. Our new rule is that it stays on the table during the hide and seek portion of the game. Finally, the bus arrives at the Zoo and you count your cards. Game over. I have to say I find the end of the game a little anti-climactic, but Sy loves driving the little yellow bus marker through the gates of the Zoo.

The first couple of times I played it, I thought - that’s it? That’s all we do? But “all” is a lot for my girl. She has to keep track of her points, the problems at the Zoo, the walkie talkie and all the escaped animals. We haven’t played it with any of her other friends yet, but I wonder if when we do they will resist settling back into the game after the hide and seek rounds (two per game). Sy is a really focused, particular kid, so it’s very important for her to get right back to the game at hand, but I wonder if other kiddos might want to keep playing hide and seek instead of the board game. I suppose you could allow for a few rounds before moving back to the game. Sy usually wants to play two rounds. I think each game takes about ten minutes to play.

All in all, it’s a pretty sweet, silly game.
-If it came with directions I could actually understand, I’d give it another half smiley face.
-Personally, I like it more than Busy Diner, but that’s based almost completely on decibel levels alone.
-Like Busy Diner, players do not have to be able to read to play the game.
-It’s at a good price point, too. I try to stay under $20.00 for most gifts we give, and at $19.99, they’ve got my number.
-Not a fan of gaping hole on the cover of the box. It was for the “try me!” walkie talkie part, but if you lose the plastic casing for the walkie talkie (like I did the first day), pieces of the game can fall out.

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