We’ve heard a lot of good things about Cariboo from mother’s groups. And we’ve given it as a gift to another family, who said they really enjoyed it. The minimum age they recommend is 3 - so we figured we had some time to wait.

But patience is not our strong point.

To be fair, the balls in the game are a choking hazard, as our boy has already tried swallowing one. So you gotta keep your eye on the little ones while playing the game. Really. Keep an eye on them.

But, if you can do that, then there is a fun little game to be played.

In “beginner” mode, there are 18 doors with various cards on them. The cards all have a word that starts with A, B or C on it. There is a picture of the word above it (Boat…) and the picture is in a certain color - Red, Green, Blue or Yellow. And then there is 1 to 4 of the copies of the item on the card. Oh - and they are wrapped up in shapes like circles or triangles or squares. Whew. Lots of dimensions.

Then, you choose a “playing” card. Say it comes up Red. You get to match red with one of the doors and open the door. Under 1/3 of the doors, there is a ball! You get to pick the ball up and put it into the magic river. Once 6 balls are in the magic river, the treasure chest opens up.

You’re supposed to take turns and such. But our little guy was just getting into the concept of using the key to open the door and then sometimes finding a ball. He was really happy when he found the ball. And opening the treasure chest? Lots of fun. The downside was that the gem that’s revealed in the treasure chest, well, it is glued to the chest. Our boy wanted to take that out and play with it.

Anyway - so we’ve gone through the board a few times, lots of doors opened. Over time, we figure he’ll get more into the rules of the game - matching colors, or numbers, or letters, or shapes. Then we’ll learn how to take turns. And how to compete!

Once we get through this mode though, there is also an “advanced” mode. Where there are 1-10 objects. And the clue cards go from A-Z. When you pick a letter, you can open a door as long as the word contains the letter (instead of starts with - so a Y card can open up the “bicycle” door). So we figure this game can scale pretty well over the next couple of years.

As long as we don’t break it too much. Still, it’s a great first game for us.

Tags: parenting, games, cariboo, cariboo review