Disclosure: Wonder Forge provided a free sample of this game to facilitate this review. Any opinions are my own.
As an occupational therapist working mainly with children in the preschool and early elementary school realm, I love fun board games. Not only do these games generally encourage children to build upon their individual thinking skills and hand/eye coordination, one of the best life lessons for this age group is learning how to take turns, work together and cope appropriately with the process of winning and losing. Cooperative board games don’t force winning and losing between individual players. These games encourage players to work together in teams to determine the final outcome of the game.
I think, one of the best board game companies for children in this age group is Wonder Forge. I’ve reviewed several of their themed games in my role with About.com that included Jake and the Neverland Pirates Who Shook Hook?, The Fun Machine (featuring Dr. Seuss), and one of my personal all-time favorite’s, the Disney Princess Enchanted Cupcake Party.
However, one of the most requested games I’ve ever played with children is the DC Super Friends Joker Fun House Game. This game features 4 DC Super Friends: Batman, Superman, The Flash and the Green Lantern. Within the game each superhero has special powers. Superman has x-ray vision, Batman launches a batarang, the Flash moves at lightning speed quickly through the board and the Green Lantern has a force field to protect the Super Friends from the Joker’s wrecking ball. By flicking the spinner, players move their piece to the corresponding colored space on the game board. Players work together to get all of the DC Super Friends to the finish line before the Joker can knock them back to start with his orange ball, while he tries to beat the opponents by getting to his getaway hatch first.
This game is recommended for 2-4 players, with kids ages 4 and up. There are 2 spinners, one for the Super Friends, while the Joker gets his own spinner. Game play does not require reading, but focuses on skills such as color matching and number recognition.
The Joker’s spinner determines whether he moves 1 space toward the getaway hatch, turns a card to reveal how many total spaces he can move (0-4), or whether he will roll an orange ball down one of the ramps to knock the Super Heroes back to start.
When I play, I’m generally always the Joker, primarily because the kids want to be any one of the Super Friends. If you have kids with different abilities, the Joker moves numbered spaces, while the Super Friends move by colored spaces. Therefore, in terms of skill, older children or adults playing along are probably best suited for the Joker.
Using their super powers, the Super Friends try to stop the Joker. Batman is definitely the coolest character given his launching batarang which children aim at the Joker trying to knock him down him from his spot. Kids love the Batman character of the game, which can prompt a little bit of arguing and competition in the beginning, for those familiar with game play. Superman comes in second, with his super power using his x-ray vision to remove the highest card from the Joker’s suitcase pile. The Green Lantern has a force field to protect the player from being knocked over by the Joker’s ball, while The Flash moves quickly from one super power space to the next.
Though the game play states all 4 super friends should play every game, I’ve also had the Joker go head-to-head with one other super friend and still win or lose. In this case, if I am the Joker, I secretly monitor the Joker’s suitcase cards from turn to turn and can pace the game play by determining how fast the Joker will get near the getaway hatch.
This is a simple game that mainly boys, up to the age of 9 (through 2nd or 3rd game) have really enjoyed playing. At these older ages, though they can easily remember the rules, but boys can be so competitive and have a really hard time winning and losing. I have seen some children who aren’t friends and generally have an extremely difficult time getting along in the classroom amazingly work together while joining forces on this game board. My only frustration with the game is that I do wish the “getaway hatch” was a little cooler. The joker just moves to this space and the game is over. If he could fall into a trap door and out the getaway hatch, that would be awesome.
In addition to playing the game, because these characters are so motivating for children my favorite activity to pair up with this game, is to put children through what I call “super hero training.” Before they can assume their game character they have to complete an exercise. They can fly on their bellies raising arms and legs for 20 seconds like SuperMan, flap their arms up/down 20 times like Batman, run quickly in place for 20 seconds like the Flash, or hold a cool yoga pose like a force field as the Green Lantern.
Disclosure: Wonder Forge provided a free sample of this game to facilitate this review. Any opinions are my own.