The Preschool Puzzlemaster Presents
Written: Aug 30 '05 (Updated Sep 09 '05)
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Pros: Challenging puzzle, cute presentation, keeps kids engaged for hours
Cons: You might want to skip the Junior version in favor of the adult game.
The Bottom Line: Vroom, vroom. Race to your toy store and buy it for your puzzle-loving preschooler.
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| theeye's Full Review: Binary Arts Rush Hour Jr. |
I've found some terrific toys for my son through recommendations on Epinions.
Then again, some of the best toys I've found have been purely serendipitous. Case in point: Rush Hour, Jr., the solitaire puzzle game by ThinkFun (formerly Binary Arts).
Oddly enough, I'd never heard of this game until my five-year-old spotted it in a little toy store we were visiting and successfully lobbied for it. Since then, I've discovered that many of our friends (and their kids) are big fans. And there are many Java implementations available on the web, if you'd like to try it out for free, e.g., http://www.coolmath-games.com/rush/ on the eminently bookmarkable Cool Math site.
A simple sliding-block strategy puzzle, Rush Hour, Jr. is cleverly overlaid with a particularly kid-friendly theme. The six-by-six grooved grid represents a parking lot into which sixteen brightly colored plastic cars (two units long) and trucks (three units long) can be packed. The object of the game is to move the vehicles around so as to allow the two-unit-long ice cream truck to escape out of the single exit.
The rules are simple: once the vehicles are placed in their starting positions, they are free to slide forward or backward but are constrained to remain within a single row or column of the grid. No turns and no jumping over other vehicles. Sounds easy? Don't be so sure.
A deck of cards included with the game provides forty different starting positions for the vehicles, ten each in four categories of increasing difficulty. The easier challenges involve only a handful of the vehicles and are relatively unthreatening to even a preschooler's self-esteem, while the expert challenges put the vehicles into densely packed, seemingly intractable, configurations which can confound even adult players. The solution to each challenge is printed on the back of the card; some of the more advanced challenges require as many as fifty moves to solve and will leave you with a newfound respect for your parking garage attendant.
When we brought Rush Hour, Jr. home, we rather expected that our five-year-old son would attempt one or two of the puzzles, but soon lose interest and turn to playing at racing the cars across the floor. Boy, were we wrong. He understood the rules immediately and solved all of the Beginner challenges in short order, clearly relishing each success. We were particularly impressed to see that he was obviously thinking several steps ahead, becoming visibly triumphant a few moves before each win. And he seemed to have no problem physically manipulating the vehicles and keeping them from tumbling out of the grid.
Despite its being close to his bedtime, we told him that he could continue to work on puzzles until he got stumped. To our utter astonishment, he plowed through all of the Intermediate and Advanced challenges and, well past his bedtime, was nearly through the Expert puzzles (with no help from Mommy and Daddy, mind you) when he began to show obvious signs of exhaustion. After a fairly impressive meltdown (No, I will NOT stop! I am NOT tired! I want to do ALL the puzzles! All forty! And I won't go to bed until I've done them all! You can't make me!), the likes of which we had not seen for many months, we negotiated a truce: he would go to bed, but we would let him do all forty puzzles the next day, once he was well-rested.
And, indeed, he successfully solved all forty the next day, though the final, and most difficult, challenge took quite some time.
(By the way, if you are beginning to suspect that this review is really just an excuse for me to kvell about my son, you are, of course, quite correct.)
ThinkFun has done a terrific job of packaging a simple brain-teaser in a cute package that provides kids with both a mental workout and practice with fine motor skills. And it's a lot of fun for children and adults alike.
Rush Hour, Jr. is marketed as appropriate for ages 6 to 8; the original version (which, yes, I immediately ordered, along with its three expansion card decks) is listed for ages 8 through adult. While the adult challenges include some truly diabolical configurations, the games are physically compatible, with identically sized six-by-six grids and an interchangeable, though more generic, set of vehicles. (The adult grid has a handy pull-out drawer to store the cards, which the Junior version lacks.)
So should you buy the Junior version or the adult version? It's hard to say. In addition to a more gentle range of challenges, the Junior version has vehicles that are more visually appealing to the preschool set, which may make the difference if you have a younger child. On the other hand, our five year old has been happily working on the adult version and it will likely provide many more hours of playability. If your child is kindergarten age or older, I would recommend jumping right to the adult version. The expansion card decks can be used with either version of the game, but the vehicle colors match the adult game: a seemingly trivial difference, yes, but the colors do make it more convenient to confirm that you've correctly matched the initial configuration.
Of course, buying both versions means you won't have to fight with your child about who gets to play.
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Additional reading and resources:
Manufacturer's site: www.thinkfun.com
Recommended on-line store: www.stewarttoys.com
Washington Post article about the manufacturer: How the Washington area's only toy manufacturer became the world's premier brainteaser company is puzzling. Read more here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A18618-2003Feb16
The ThinkFun philosophy: http://www.thinkfun.com/About.aspx?PageNo=ABOUT
Ready for more challenge? Try Roadside Rescue also from ThinkFun
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 15
Type of Toy: Educational
Age Range of Child: 6 to 8 Years
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Epinions.com ID:
theeye
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Location: New York, NY (it's a hell of a town!)
Reviews written: 66
Trusted by: 165 members
About Me:
Company president, math geek, first time mom at 39, epinion addict. Sleep? Not lately.
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