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The Best Worst Ice Cream is a fun new game from Kitten Games. It is a competitive game intended for children age 4+ and for between 2 to 5 players. I’ve played it with my two children (8 and nearly 4) and these are our thoughts!
Set-up
Everything comes nicely contained in a cardboard box. It’s not too bulky and closes with Velcro, which I liked. Set-up is quick and simple. You assemble the very cute ice cream figurines (the box ix big enough to store them fully assembled so you only need to do this once). These represent yucky flavours (worst ice cream flavours!)- chilli pizza, worm, hotdog, snail and…. possibly alien? The identity of the blue ice cream is hotly debated in our house but we eventually settled for alien. Line up your figurines. You then shuffle the ice cream flavour cards. These round cards have three possible ice cream flavours on the front, and on the back only one of these flavours. These individual flavours are the “ice cream scoops” you are trying to collect. You start by turning over the top five to reveal the flavour of the single “ice cream scoop” on the back. Place them in front of the corresponding figurines. Not all figures are likely to have a card in front of them, but this is your starting point. Give each player an ice cream board to “assemble” their ice cream on and… you’re ready!
Game-play
On your turn, you look at the front of the next ice cream card. You use this hint try to guess the flavour on the back. Once you’ve made your decision, you place the card in front of the respective figurine and then turn it over. If it’s a match (and you guessed correctly), you scoop up this and any other matching flavour cards that have accumulated in front of this figurine. If you are wrong, you move it to the correct figurine and leave it there. Any cards that you win you place on your ice-cream card to make your ice cream. Play continues in turn until someone fills up their whole card ( 9 scoops or cards of the Best Worst Ice Cream) and they are declared the winner.
Game play takes about ten minutes. There is a little bit of strategy and decision making involved- will you guess the flavour that has lots of scoops already in front of it, so if you are correct you can fill your ice-cream card faster? Are you paying attention to what the last few flavours were, to guess something different? It is however mostly a luck based game. There isn’t much player interaction, as you are all just trying to fill up your own card, and your actions don’t have much impact on your fellow players.
What we liked about the Best Worst Ice Cream:
· The artwork- the ice cream flavours, particularly the figurines, are very cute
· It stores into quite a small box so is portable
· The instructions were illustrated and clear, and you don’t need to be able to read to play
· It starts to introduce a small amount of strategy
What we didn’t like about the Best Worst Ice Cream:
· Although the figurines where made of sturdy cardboard, the ice cream boards are just made of thin card, and come folded in half. This is to make them fit in the box, but they feel very flimsy. Coupled with how thin the actual “scoop flavour” cards are, everything has a tendency to slide around. It doesn’t feel very durable when you account for the ages of the children who will play it.
· The round cards are very tricky to shuffle.
Final Thoughts on the Best Worst Ice Cream:
This is a fun little game for younger children. It’s easy for them to pick up and the artwork is very cute. Games are quick and we often play 2-3 rounds. Although there is a little bit of strategy introduced, it’s mostly luck that leads to a win, so younger players aren’t disadvantaged. It helps children learn turn taking, and using some strategic thinking to try and win. My son is bothered by the fact his ice cream card gets filled up with a random number of scoops of each flavour, as he generally prefers things to have a more definite order to them - but that is very much his nature! I wish some of the components were sturdier in view of the target audience.