Board Game Review: AnimaLogic
I purchased AnimaLogic as a gift for my daughter on her fourth birthday because it’s an educational toy. My intent was to use this game to teach her to think predictively in much the same way that some parents teach their children chess. She’s only four years old, and the Fat Brain Toys age usage grid shows a recommended minimum age of five, so I expect her to grow into it.
In AnimaLogic, you’ve got to save a group of sixteen animals from raging rapids by helping them across a river. The trick is that animals can only cross single file, and each animal must be either the same color or the same animal type as the animal that preceeds it. The game has sixty different starting arrangements of varying difficulty.
The game is really more of a logic puzzle than a board game, and playing with multiple players simply involves players co-operating to figure out the correct sequence. It’s got the same painted wooden pieces you see in Euro games such as Carcasonne, and a sturdy spiral-bound book containing the sixty starting sequences.
I won’t generally review kids’ games in this column, but I know that lots of the geeks in attendance at The Lair have kids, and AnimaLogic seems a great game for a geek kid.
Players: 1 or more
Recommended Age: 5 and up
Time to Play: 5 minutes for easier puzzles, longer for more difficult ones
Price: $17
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