From the makers of the "whole-brain" board game, Cranium, comes a for-kids take-off. Cadoo plays like a delightful mix of favorite games — it has elements of charades, tic-tac-toe, and Pictionary, for example. The result is a game that has enough variety to entertain children for hours, and to exercise their brains in creative ways.
The object of the game is to get four colorful tokens in a row onto the grid of the game board. Playing the game involves rolling a die and selecting a card from either the Solo or Combo deck. Solo play may be as passive as answering a multiple-choice trivia question (such as "Pick the queen who ruled the longest time ago") or as active as finding something round to balance on your head. But whether it's a performance or a thinking challenge, the player who draws a Solo card must do something alone. Drawing a Combo card means collaborating — players will need to draw, sculpt, or act out a mystery word or phrase for opponents to guess.
Kids might have to act out a game of ping-pong, sculpt a guitar with the included clay, or draw an acorn in order to get a token on the board. Sometimes, they will have to get up and go find something around the house against a timer. One card, for example, requires a player to quickly find something with a handle as well as something they can tie in a knot. More passive demands include identifying an object from a close-up picture, solving a rebus puzzle, identifying what is wrong with a picture, and thinking of one word given two different definitions.
Players will need to wear the included "secret decoder" glasses in order to check their answers or read a secret word, which takes care of the awkwardness involved with handling cards — and adds to the fun. The game comes with a pot of scented clay for sculpting mystery objects, a pad and pencil for doodling challenges, and the decoder mask for revealing secret answers.
Whatever the activity, thought must go into it. Some strategy is also involved when placing the tokens on the board — the objective of the game is to make a line of tokens four in a row. The twist is that other players can sometimes place their tokens on top of another player's token.
The game has a short learning curve — after reviewing the relatively simple rules of the game, kids can jump right in and play. A typical game lasts approximately half and hour — short enough to keep kids' interest levels high, and long enough to satisfy their needs for fun.
Though kids can happily play the game together, Cadoo is perfectly suited for family play. Though adults won't find the trivia questions challenging, they might find that their kids are worthy opponents when it comes down to play-acting and building objects out of clay! Cadoo is wonderful alternative to computer and video games. The game's highly social game-play gets kids interacting with each other and laughing. In addition, its variety means it is highly improbable that the game will bore kids any time soon.
