Could Baby Dinosaur Rescue fire Candy Land?

Baby Dinosaur Rescue is a game that is clearly designed for a pre-literate audience. 

It is a cooperative game where everyone is trying to move three to five baby dinosaurs along a track to get them to safety. In this particular case, safety means the end of the track. You move a pawn by playing a card and moving it to the next open spot that matches that card’s symptom. Yes, that means you get to jump over occupied spaces. Which is pretty much the point of the game.

There’s also a lava track. There are lava cards. When they are drawn, you immediately move the lava token down the lava track. If the lava reaches the end of its track before all the baby dinosaurs are safe, the game is lost. We won’t think about what the lava does to the baby dinosaurs.

The game that immediately comes to mind is Cartagena, although Baby Dinosaur Rescue also reminds me of Lotus Moon. But the game you really need to compare it to is Candy Land.

Because Baby Dinosaur Rescue isn’t just a kid game. It’s one that’s aimed at the very youngest gamers. I wouldn’t even recommend it for someone as old as seven. But if you compare it to Candy Land or Don’t Spill the Beans or even Rivers, Roads & Rails, there’s more choices, more game going on.

I think if a child see you skip over occupied spaces, leapfrogging down the track, that’s when you’ll know if they will like it or not. If you can sell them with that, you’re golden.

What I want to know is why is in Board Game Arena? That’s where I learned and played it and I find it hard to believe that anyone has their toddler playing games on BGA.

I honestly think even a first grader will get bored by Baby Dinosaur Rescue. But it’s worth a try for toddlers.

Matching and stacking before Candy Land

I had expected that counting would be the first steps in teaching our son about board games. Instead, it has been stacking and matching.

I've heard that Candy Land is a child's first game, mostly from other gamer parents who couldn't keep the grandparents from buying it. Being colorblind, I've never liked Candy Land and, as a gamer, I dislike how it offers no choices unless someone decides to stack the deck, which I view as a valid choice.

But it has been pointed out to me that Candy Land not only teaches colors and counting but also teaches kids to take turns and that pawns can represent them on the board. And that if my son rips the board in half or shreds the cards, I won't care :P

However, what was really my son's first exposure to games has been Animal Upon Animal and My First Animal Tower from Fisher Price, both stacking games. I may someday find all of the animals from Animal Upon Animal :D

Matching games have also been a good success. He hasn't yet twigged to the idea that Mommy or Daddy should get a turn but he understands looking for matches. Still, understanding how to look for matches is a big step.

(We've also let him play with Cooties but just as a puzzle. We would never be so cruel as to ask him to follow those rules)

Honestly, identifying pictures and motor skills like stacking are basic building blocks for a toddlers understanding and relating to the world. It's only natural that those should be their starting games.