I guess I need to stop being surprised at finding cheap games with good gameplay. When I was a kid, games made of cardboard and paper pieces that had random sponsors, or that were junior versions of popular adult games, were always bad. Come to think of it, most games for kids were always bad. But after the success of Scrabble Junior in our household, anything's possible, and the fact that Wild Planet is the real name behind this game (they're the developers of the brilliant Wild Planet Hyper Dash) has ensured that this game actually works.

Crayola's (?!) Guess My Picture game is another dark horse. Using a collection of sometimes-useful, sometimes barely-relevant shapes to replicate photos of everyday objects is the young child's answer to Pictionary, as it encourages attention to detail and representational thinking in a way that drawing doesn't for kids of this age. It's also interesting that color is, if anything, a distractor in this game that players must learn to discount when selecting pieces (shape matters much more, as colors rarely match) or trying to guess what another player has created.

Here are a few examples of shape creations that were positively identified in our game.







Z made that last one. I'm inordinately proud of that shirt collar.

There's really no such thing as failure in this game, so everyone racks up points via cards with random point assignments on them, which could be a source of irritation for older kids, but this game really isn't for older kids. It's ideally suited for kids ages 4-6 or so, and it's simple, but it works.

My only complaint about this game is its $20 price tag. Briarpatch has been a pioneer in licensed cardboard-and-paper games over the last decade and they have proven that such games can be sold at under $15. We are simply not living in a world where this game should cost $20, licensing or no.

You can pick up the Crayola Guess My Picture game on Amazon for about $20.