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All the animals in the jungle are meeting at the jungle to play hide-and-seek, but turtle is late! To catch up with her friends, she slides down the river and splashes into the lake to drive her friends out from their hiding places! Turtle Splash is a 2 – 4 player flicking and memory game, marketed for ages 4 and up, but suitable for 4-year olds too, and plays in 15-minutes-ish.
Set Up & Gameplay
The game includes a circular wooden turtle token, which at the start of every turn you will place at the top of a river-ramp and flick down to a cardboard lake, which nicely slots into the ramp. The river-ramp has two removable barriers (like the bumpers at 10-pin bowling!) which you can leave off or put on depending on your difficulty preferences. The lake board at the bottom of the river has a central area, which is slightly depressed into the board, your target on each turn. There are also 12 animal tiles, placed face-down on the table in a 3 x 4 grid, and personal boards which sit in front of each player. On these boards you have little pictures of the 12 animals in 3 rows. You place a little ball token to the far-left of each of these 3 rows at the start of the game.
In the game you will put the turtle token at the top of the ramp and flick it down the river, aiming for the centre of the lake. Depending on how good your aim is, you will turn over 1 – 3 of the 12 animal tiles which are placed face down on the table. For example, if you flick the turtle in the centre, you get to turn over 3 tiles. The aim is to turn over an animal tile which matches the next one on your track. If you get a match, you move your ball token along. To start of with, your tile selection is random and getting a match will be based on luck. However, on later turns you will have to try to remember where all the animals are on the grid. First one to get all of their ball tokens to the far-right of their board, wins!
Game Review
To start with, the game looks great. I think with games for adults the theme and appearance of a game are less important, but it is vital to get kids into enjoying a game. Certain games, including this one, give kids joy entirely based on the look of the game. The artwork is not like typical kids games, and is nicely detailed with cute-looking animals, turning over the tiles often led to outbursts like ‘awww it’s so cute!’ from my kids! One minor criticism is that the small size and artwork on the tile makes it a bit more difficult to remember where each animal is.
Now How Does It Play? Well……its okay.
On the positive, Turtle Splash is easy to learn, even for kids, and quick to pick up and play. The game is split into two parts, the most unique, and best part, of the game is the flicking bit. Anyone who has tried flicking games will know there is something inherently satisfying about them. Although this part of the game might seem easy, I was fairly dreadful at it and my four-year-old son was much better than me! Where the game falls short is the memory aspect. Kids memory games are absolutely everywhere. Also, they are such a common ‘add-on’ for a game, like in Turtle Splash, to add a bit more meat. I think this is a bit of a lazy mechanic, which is too commonplace. The kids did not seem to mind too much on one play through, but playing two-games back-to-back is quite tiresome and weighted down by the memory part. If you and your little ones are relatively new to board games and have not encountered many memory games I wouldn’t let this put you off. But if you have a young family who have played a lot of board games (like mine!) then you will have played far too many games with a memory-slant, which might be off putting.
Overall, the Turtle Splash is a fun-little game. It is perfectly diverting for a one-off 15-minute game every now and then. It favours younger players; off the top of my head, I cannot think of a better flicking game for 4- and 5-year-olds. I think that children aged 6 and 7 will still enjoy it, but kids older than this might get bored quickly. Also, if your kids are this age or older then Ice Cool is a much better bet. What Next? also includes a flicking mini-game, which is essentially the same as the flicking part of Turtle Splash but makes up around a tenth of the game! Your kids might have to be a bit older to do What Next? but me and my 6-year old can manage some of it together.
Final Thoughts
This game looks great and plays quite well, particularly for younger kids. If you get Turtle Splash for your 4,5- or 6-year-old you will have a good time. It just might not last longer than one game at a time and the memory aspect is far less fun than flicking.
