Award winning publisher Chip Theory Game is mostly known for their high quality games that utilize poker chips as a central component. From Too Many Bones, to Hoplomachus, to Cloudspire, their games often make their way to our tabletops.
However, they have decided to branch out into the family games realm with their newest offering, the Independent Play Series from their imprint line Chip Theory Kids. This is a pack of 4 solo games aimed at letting kids learn and grow on their own, all while having some fun.
Gameplay Overview:
The Independent Play Series comes with four different titles in the box:
Sudoku Forest is a lighter take on the popular Sudoku, where instead of numbers, there are 9 different animals. These have to be placed in specific rows or columns to satisfy the placement requirements.
Tangram Adventures has the player trying to fit specific geometric shapes into an outline to form a bigger shape. You know… a tangram puzzle.
Pixel Party is similar to Tangram Adventures in that you are trying to fit smaller shapes into a bigger shape. However, instead of using a series of geometric shapes, you are instead using shapes made out of square blocks (or pixels). These tiles are alternating black and white and need to also be placed on their matching colors.
Finally, there is Neighborhood Hide & Seek. The player has to fit polynomial shapes into a grid so that only one child picture is left uncovered. That’s the one who “wins” the game of hide and seek.
Game Experience:
As anyone with young kids probably knows, you’ll do just about anything for a few minutes of peace and quiet. So when the Independent Play series arrived, I knew Chip Theory was speaking my language. My kids were 6 years old when trying these out, so I felt like they were the perfect age for me to toss these at them, give a quick rules rundown, and let them at it.
And, for the most part, they really enjoyed this series. I like that there were 4 different games in the pack, as what often happens with kids, they eventually got bored with one, so it was nice for them to be able to move on to a different activity.
My kids’ favorite game was easily Sudoku Forest. My daughter really enjoyed the logic puzzle, and it produced many fewer moments of frustration with them. I think Tangram adventure was their least favorite, with my son often lamenting about how a particular shape is “impossible”. I’d eventually give him a hint to keep him going, but I think that one just wasn’t clicking with them.
All four games also had varying difficulty scales, with each starting out very easy and eventually going to 4-star difficulty. For most of these games, my kids eventually wanted to skip to the hardest difficulty as they quickly solved the early puzzles. With the Sudoku one, they even breezed through the hardest puzzles, so I wish Chip Theory would have pushed the difficulty a bit more on the top end, as once they beat the hardest level, they quickly lost interest in doing easier ones.
I asked them to rank them in order of their most to least favorite and the said: Sudoku Forest, then Neighborhood Hide & Seek, then Pixel Party, and finally Tangram Adventure. I think they just aren’t really into finding shapes into other shapes. So you kids may feel differently. I will say that they did enjoy all of them, but spent more time on Sudoku Forest and Hide and Seek.
Speaking off Neighborhood Hide & Seek, I thought this was a particularly clever one. It did take the most explanation as it’s not just fitting shapes into a shape, because you have to be aware of what you are covering or not covering. If you are looking for one to just toss at your young ones and go about your day, this is probably the last one to go with.
Over the past half-decade, I’ve played a lot of family games with my kids. And I have to say, these games from Chip Theory Games are really well made. The components are all thick and durable, but the star of the show is that everything is magnetic. The boxes are also metal, so your kids can stick the pieces onto the lid while playing. This makes it a great option for families on the go, or even to play in the car, as things won’t slide around. That was a brilliant idea from Chip Theory Games.
Final Thoughts:
The Independent Play Series is a great start for Chip Theroy Kids first offering. It’s really well made, should hold up to the abuse kids throws at things, and is educational too boot. For the most part, they should be able to play without needing help from you, which is a win in my book. I do wish that the difficulty scaled a little higher, but overall, it’s a great product.
Source: Board Game Quest
