Cardboard Corner: Race to the Treasure

Race to the Treasure (2012) caught my eye as an Amazon recommendation while browsing small children’s games. Reading further, the voices in support of the game came from too many different corners to be just “coincidence”. So, I splashed the cash. And since playing innumerable times with my children (aged 3 and still holding some interest at age 6 though fading), it seems the voices were right.

Race to the Treasure is a simple, cooperative logic game for small children. Players work together to build a path from the starting square, across a grid, to a treasure square. Collect all three keys and get to the treasure first, the group wins. Take too much time, and the ogre will get the treasure before you. Simple as that!

Players start the game by rolling two dice to determine where the keys are located on the grid. After, they shuffle the board tiles and place them in a single stack. To play, players take turns drawing the top tile in the stack and placing it on the board. Ogre tiles are added to the ogre’s track (which acts as a timer), and the other tiles, all of which feature differing shapes, are used to build a road such that it passes through three keys to the treasure waiting at the opposite end of the board. That’s all.

The game produces very positive feelings in my children. They laugh when the ogre wins, and cheer and high-five when we get the treasure first. And of course, good ol’ dad has a smile seeing all of the above. A cooperative game, parents can easily play with children, coaching them and asking questions to stimulate lateral thinking, pattern recognition, and spatial logic.

In the end, Race to the Treasure is an excellent, cooperative game for small and very small children. It’s been on our shelf for three years, and my (now) six-year old son will still occasionally ask to play. It remains a hit with our four-year old. “No-no, ogre!” she tells him as he gets closer to the treasure. Beyond the above mentioned development skills, it also teaches letter A-F, the numbers 1-6, as well as how to triangulate them on a grid. “What do the dice say? B, yes, and 3, ok. So, put the key on B3.”—easy for us, but not easy for them when they are so small. Sometimes clichés are true, and sometimes Amazon recommendations are, too…