Game Reviews

Turtle Flip: Each player has a card and a chip. On your turn you take another chip and decide which chip you want to play (pass right, pass left, or flip). Then you do with your cards what the chip says. The goal is to get the highest card before the cards are flipped (but you can only see the card that is currently yours). If, when the "flip" chip is played, you have the highest card, you win the flip chip. Once you have 3 flip chips, you win.

Things I liked:
-The cards were almost plastic-like
-The pictures are adorable
-It's fast (easy to do best out of 5 games, etc)
-Requires skill and luck
-It was the favorite game of the kids that played
-Easy and fast to learn how to play

Things I didn't like:
-The box is HUGE compared to what is in it. I will be putting the cards and chips and instructions in a zipper pouch to save room on our game shelf.
-The rules say that once chips have been played, they are not used the rest of the game, but then there aren't many chips left near the end. We would remix the chips after a flip chip was won.

 *******************
PongCano: Each person has equal number of chips. Players take turns trying to bounce the ball into the volcano. If they miss, one of their chips goes into the volcano. If they succeed, they win all the chips in the volcano. Players are not out even if they have no chips. First player to win all the chips, wins the game.

Things I like:
-The ball is a regular ping pong ball which is easily replaced when your 4 year old looses it.
-I thought it was going to be boring and we'd always get the ball in the volcano and the game would never end. But this was not the case. It was a lot harder than we thought it would be. (But not too hard). And if we end up getting really good at it, there are obstacles you can place in the way to make bouncing the ball into the volcano harder.
-It's like "beer pong" for kids.
-Costs the least

Things I dislike:
-It's like "beer pong" for kids. (I can't decide if that is a good thing or a bad thing.)
-The tag-line is "the game of sacrifice" but that doesn't make sense. Sacrifice means giving up something good in exchange for something better (like a new mom giving up sleep for her newborn that needs to eat). When you "sacrifice" a chip in the game, there is no benefit.

********************

Monkey's Up: Monkeys are in the middle. Each monkey has a number underneath it. Each person picks three random monkeys. (Players can see their own monkeys). Players take turns rolling the dice and following what it says. "Switch" means to trade 1 of your monkeys for any other monkey. "Steal" means to take any monkey. "Flip" means you flip over one monkey to reveal to all the number on it's bottom (and then it stays flipped). "Reverse" means the die goes in the opposite direction. Once one player has 3 of their monkeys flipped, the game is over and the rest of the players flip monkeys in front of them to have 3 flipped monkeys. The player with the highest score when their monkeys are added up wins the game.

Things I like:
-The monkeys are cute
-It was my personal favorite of the three
-I like the combination of skill and luck

Things I dislike:
-Hardest of the three to learn (not really a bad thing since it was still easy to learn)
-The box was too big for the pieces included. (But not nearly as bad of a ratio as Turtle Flip.)