Chinese Checkers... not really checkers, and not Chinese!
Written: Jan 06 '07
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Pros: Fantastic, absorbing game for 4 or 6 players...
Cons: ... not quite so good for 2/3/5 players, younger children might struggle with it
The Bottom Line: An excellent game for small groups of players, more adult-oriented than for kids.
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| captaind's Full Review: Chinese Checkers - Solid Wood |
Chinese Checkers is one of those infuriating games that gets extremely addictive, and is deceptively simple. You can have up to 6 players with 3 diametrically opposite pairs of players (see the product image here on Epinions and you’ll see what I mean). We normally play it with 4 players, with two opposing pairs, though as you are playing against everyone it doesn’t particularly matter where you start out or who’s opposite you. Obviously the minimum number of players is 2 (unless you want a really easy game!! ;-D)
The aim of the game is very simple – move all of your coloured marbles from one side of the board to the other. You start off with ten marbles in a triangle shape (1-2-3-4 formation) and must get all of your marbles to the triangle opposite. You can either move your marbles one hole in any free direction, or jump over one or more other marbles. This is where the real skill in the game comes in, and also where it gets tricky. You see, with a well thought-out move, you can basically jump clean from one side of the board to the board to the other. However, if you see another player lining up a move that includes one of your marbles (the colour of the marble doesn’t make any difference when it comes to jumping over them), you can destroy their whole carefully-planned-out-for-the-last-ten-moves mega jump. They of course can do the same to you. Then of course there is your last line of defence – if you have a marble occupying one of the spaces they have to move into in their destination triangle, they cannot win. However, the longer you leave a piece way back in your original triangle, the longer it’s going to take you to reach your destination. The other players can of course perform the same rotten tricks on your own masterfully deduced plans, so keeping a watchful eye on the position of the board is crucial at all times. As you can jump over marbles in any direction, sometimes you have to go in apparently the wrong direction to get in position for the next jump, which will take you closer to your goals.
Each player takes a turn and you can’t skip a go. The game quickly gets very involved if you have a few players. Personally I think the best games would involve either 4 or 6 players – 2-player wouldn’t be so much of a challenge, and the game doesn’t seem properly balanced if you have an odd number of players. Players of ordinary checkers (or draughts as it is more commonly known in Britain) will quickly find that this game is more complicated with more players involved. One potential downside is that I think younger children might really have truoble getting to grips with it, at least initially. It's more a game for adults and / or older children who have relatively good mental abilities. Not a complicated as chess though!
Overall, Chinese Checkers is a great game for small get together. Obviously if you have more than 6 people at a time who want to play it would be problematic! The time passes extraordinarily quickly when you really get into this game, and if does make your grey matter really do some work.
Price-wise, the wooden sets of Chinese Checkers that I’ve checked out have all been in the £6-7 range, which at current exchange rates is about $11 / $12. Although this model on Epinions is specifically the wooden set, unless you have youngish children the glass sets are more attractive – though of course the game plays exactly the same.
If you enjoy games that make you use your brain and enjoy group games, there are few better than this game that despite what you might think, does not actually originate in China. (Apparently it was first released in Germany with the name “Stern-Halma” – at least that’s what Wikipedia says – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_checkers for more information. When the game was released in America it was dubbed "Chinese Checkers" to make it sound more exotic!!) I would give it 5 stars except that I don’t think it’s as good if you have an odd number of people, so a highy recommended 4 stars is my final rating.
(Apparently there is also another version of the game called “capture”, which is faster and you should have instructions with the game. However I’m not going to comment on this version of the game specifically as I always play the original version of the game as described above. The capture game is more similar to ordinary checkers; however my thinking is that if you want to play a game like checkers… why not just play checkers?!??)
This is only my second foray into the Kids & Family category. The other is the excellent “what if?” game created by two Australian brothers, iMAGiNiff.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 11
Type of Toy: Board Game
Age Range of Child: Whole Family
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