There’s nothing quite as satisfying as participating in a contest and emerging victorious. Whether it’s a spelling bee, a board game giveaway, a raffle, or a chili cook off, knowing that your best effort paid off is a great feeling—almost better than the prize itself (whatever that may be). Good, healthy competition is not only food for the spirit, but it builds bonds with others that bring us all closer together.
When it comes to competition in board games, there is no competition with a clearer objective than a race to the finish. And, no doubt, that is why racing games are so popular among gamers of a younger audience. In today’s Step Ladder, the first one ever targeted at a younger audience, we’re going to explore this theme and hopefully, by the end, you’ll have everything you need to kick your family game night into high gear.
Candy Land > Garden Getaway > Quacks and Co.
Candy Land
In 1948, A woman named Eleanor Abbott lay recovering from polio in a hospital ward in San Diego, California. Looking around at the sick children that occupied the ward, she began thinking of a way to bring some sunshine and positivity into their lives. Hitting upon an idea, she got to work, and the fruit of her labor was the game Candy Land. It was such a hit amongst the children that she was encouraged to seek out a publisher. And so she did. The rest, as they say, is history. Candy Land put the Milton Bradley Company on the map and has remained one of the best-selling games of all time for over 70 years.
No doubt you’ve heard of it and have probably even played it. Just in case you haven’t, the gameplay is simple. The game board is composed of a meandering path, made up of different colored spaces, that ends at the Candy Castle. Each player has a gingerbread man pawn and, by drawing and playing cards from a central deck, they will race their pawn down the path in order to reach the castle before their opponents.
Each card contains one or two squares of a single color. On their turn, the player will draw a card and move according to the number, and color, of the squares on their card. For instance, if a player draws a card with 2 green squares on it, they will move their pawn to the next green square along the path, and then to the next green square beyond that. Usually, the player will then end their turn, although some spaces may cause the player to move forwards or backwards along the path in a style similar to Chutes and Ladders. Among the cards are also a few pink Location cards. If a player draws one of these, they move their pawn to the associated location, even if it would mean moving their pawn backwards along the path to get there.
That’s about it for the rules. With its simple ruleset and clear objective, it’s no wonder that Candy Land is such a popular game among children. The game has also been hailed as a great learning tool for youngsters, with its reliance on colors and simple counting. While that may be a valid point, there’s one glaring issue with Candy Land as a game overall that, in all of its 70+ years of existence, has never been addressed.
Candy Land is an awful game.
In Candy Land, the player is just along for the ride. They have no control over their destiny. They are simply drawing cards and doing whatever those cards say to do. Where’s the fun in that? At this point, you might be thinking to yourself: “Candy Land is a classic. Everyone should be exposed to it at least once in their lifetime.” To which I would counter: “Must they?”
When Candy Land was all there was, Candy Land was fine. But, in a world with so many better, comparable options, why subject yourself to it? Why waste your precious time playing something terrible when you could be playing something like…
Garden Getaway
In Garden Getaway, the players take on the roles of animals who have been caught feasting on the vegetables in a very angry gardener’s garden. And now the gardener is on the warpath.
As with other race games, the object of the game is simple: make sure your animal is the first to escape the garden (a.k.a. “cross the Finish line”). However, the method of achieving this goal, and the game’s other mechanisms, are slightly more complex. Like Candy Land, each player is controlling a specific character and the mechanism for determining how far a character moves on its turn is based on a random output. However, unlike Candy Land, on a player’s turn, they won’t just be moving their own character. In fact, they may not even be moving their own character at all. They may be moving someone else’s! This is because, unlike Candy Land, in Garden Getaway, players have actual choices.
Here’s how the game works:
Included in the box are seven double-sided path tiles. During setup, six of these will be chosen at random and placed into a row, non-icon side up, to create the garden path. At either end you place the Starting tile and the Gate tile. The animals all begin on the Start tile, and each player is given an animal token which depicts one of the animals participating in the race. This is the animal that each player is rooting to win. However, this information is kept secret.
On a player’s turn, they’re going to roll both of the game dice and then perform the action associated with one of them. The red die features images of each of the animals with some faces depicting two different animals. If only one animal is displayed, then selecting the red die would move that animal forward by one space. If two different animals are shown, the player would choose between the two as to which animal should move forward. The yellow die is very similar, but it also features two special characters: an ‘x’ which forces the player to carry out whatever is on the red die, or a ‘-1’ which the player can choose to force an animal of their choosing to move backwards one space. Having to choose between two dice is easy when one of the animals is the one you’re backing, but it becomes a much tougher decision when you’ve got to choose between two that are benefiting other players. Because of the secret goals and the fact that everyone is having to move all of the animals around, there’s a palpable sense of excitement when your animal is nearing the finish line, and there’s a just as palpable sense of dread when another animal surges forward.
Already, we’re on a level of complexity once-removed from Candy Land. And, that difference becomes even more pronounced if you play the game using its advanced mode.
Recall earlier how I said the path tiles were double-sided? In the advanced mode, whenever the furthest back animal leaves a tile, that tile immediately flips over revealing the icon of its underbelly. Each icon has a specific power associated with it. The skateboard, for instance, is placed beneath the animal that caused it to be revealed, and for the remainder of the game, that animal will always move forward one extra tile whenever it is moved.
If this all sounds like it might be a little too complex for a kid, trust me, it’s not. My six-year-old loves this game. He likes the theme. He loves the secret goals. He’s able to grasp the mechanics. He likes that the end goal is very clear. And, he’s been playing this game since he was five. In fact, he’d still probably be clamoring to play it constantly were it not for the next game on this list.
And the best thing about the next game? It’s actually fun for adults, too!
Quacks and Co.: Quedlinburg Dash
Based in the Quacks of Quedlinburg universe, Quacks and Co.: Quedlinburg Dash takes most of the ideas presented in its namesake and does away with the press-your-luck and point salad elements. Here’s how it works:
Quacks and Co. is a bag builder game. Traditionally, in a bag builder, each player begins the game with a bag that has been pre-filled with a matching selection of tokens. Over the course of the game, they will draw tokens from the bag in order to do things that allow them to interact with the game environment in some way. They will also have the opportunity to add more tokens to their bag at some point. These new tokens are usually more powerful versions of the basic tokens they began the game with, or tokens that provide them with powers or benefits they didn’t initially have access to. And, there is always some mechanic in play to gather up tokens that have been played and add them back to the bag, thus ensuring that the bag’s contents grow and evolve over time. You start off small with turns that are short, but usually end the game with turns that are much more involved and exciting.
Each token in Quacks and Co. contains two pieces of information: a number and an icon. The number determines how many spaces the player will move their pawn forward on the track. The icon determines which action they will carry out once they have stopped moving. Each icon is associated with a double-sided tile. Each side of this tile describes a different ability that is associated with the icon. The ability on the caterpillar side is easier to grasp and understand than the butterfly version on the tile’s reverse. During setup, players will agree which side they’d like to use (or they can just mix them up randomly like we do in my household).
Apples (one of the token types) will earn you rubies that are used to go shopping for additional tokens to add to your bag. You start the game with a few of these. Also in your bag are several Dream Weed tokens, and these outnumber all the other tokens in your bag at the start of the game. If you draw a Dream Weed token, it gets placed into one of the dream bubbles on your character sheet, and you pass your turn. Once you’ve accumulated three of these, your round ends. Now, any rubies you’ve gathered can be spent to acquire new tokens to add to your bag. Any unspent rubies are then discarded, and all the tokens on your character sheet (including any you have just purchased) are placed back into your bag where they will be available to be drawn on your next turn.
In all, there are six other token types in addition to the apples: corn, lettuce, blueberries, grapes, carrots, and sugar beets. For the sake of brevity, I am not going to go into a lot of detail about what each of these do except to say that what you decide to add to your bag is entirely up to you. This differentiation is the key to what makes this game so successful. While it may sound intimidating having to keep up with what each item does, it really isn’t. None of the mechanics is overly complicated, and you’re only dealing with them one at a time.
Play continues in this fashion (drawing tokens, moving, shopping, resetting) until someone crosses the finish line. That player wins.
It’s a super fun game with a lot of replayability. On a recent family vacation, my son talked us into playing the game nine times in a four day period. And, you know what? I didn’t even mind. You won’t mind either. In terms of challenge, customization, being able to influence your own fate, and fun, Quacks and Co. stands head and shoulders over Candy Land and difficulty-wise, they’re on par with one another. That’s why Quacks and Co. sits at the top of this Step Ladder.
Hopefully, you’ve found this Step Ladder useful. As much as I try to encourage moving away from games that are patently un-fun, it is important to remember that a Step Ladder can be stepped down as well. If one of the games higher up on the Step Ladder is a little too much for your kids, you might consider the game on the tier beneath it. I may not like Candy Land personally, but I’m never going to fault you for playing board games with your children. I think we can all agree that’s pretty awesome.
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