While best known for their high production value, heavier weight strategy titles, Chip Theory’s Kids Games set out to bring high quality educational games for kids. These games include concentration, logic, geometry, and more. In the independent play series, the 4 games come in tins to be more sturdy and for use of magnetic components. This also makes them very travel-friendly. These 4 games are solo play puzzles that give you a variety of things to think about. They are designed for kids as young as 3 years old and up depending on the game. See below to check out the review of each game.
What’s In The Box?
Neighborhood Hide & Seek
- 24 Double-sided Laminated Maps
- 10 Magnetic Plastic Puzzle Pieces
- 1 Tin Case
Pixel Party
- 25 Double-sided Puzzle Sheets
- 7 Magnetic White and Black Tiles
- 1 Tin Case
Tangram Adventure
- 24 Double-sided Puzzle Sheets
- 7 Magnetic Tangram Tiles
- 1 Tin Case
Sudoku Forest
- 45 Double-sided Puzzle Sheets
- 9 Animal Magnetic Tiles
- 1 Tin Case
How’s It Play?
All of these games are designed to be played inside the tin box to help the magnetic components to stick to areas. This also helps to be more travel friendly, and minimize lost pieces while out and about.
Neighborhood Hide & Seek
You stat by choosing a map to use; the easiest is numbered “1”, and they increase in difficulty up to the map labeled “46”. But each map also lists a star rating with 1 star being easier than the 4 star maps. You take the magnetic tiles and place them on the map in a certain orientation to solve the puzzle. The circle needs to be placed on the spot where it lists the shape of that tile. Apart from the circle needing to be placed over that square, you can rotate, flip, or move the tile in any direction. This might be done several times as you place more tiles and try to orient all the tiles to fit, while also keeping the circles on the tile’s shape. When this is done correctly, there will be one square with a person visible. This person is the hide-and-seek person that you need to find to be the winner of that puzzle.
Pixel Party
First, choose a puzzle sheet to use. They start easy with number 1, and get harder as you increase in number to puzzle number 50. The puzzles rank from 1 to 4 stars, with 4 stars being the tougher puzzles. It’s recommended to place the sheet in the lid of the tin. Each puzzle lists the shapes of tiles used for that puzzle. You can place the others to the side. You then arrange the tiles so that they match within the squares shown, with the white squares matching the white squares on the tile, and the black matching up with the black squares on the tile. If you successfully orient the tiles to form the shown picture, you have completed that puzzle.
Tangram Adventure
Again, you first choose a puzzle. Each puzzle has a star rating from 1-4 with 4 stars being the hardest. You place the puzzle sheet on the lid of the tin so the magnets stick to the puzzle sheet. You then take the 7 magnets and place them so all shapes are within the white area. Some of the easier puzzles help with colored dots, others don’t have dots of all of the picture. Still others do not color the dots, but just show a dot indicating different tiles are used. If you manage to place all the tiles within the white picture, you have completed that puzzle.
Sudoku Forest
You choose a puzzle, like the other games, and the stars on the bottom right will list if it is an easy puzzle (1 star) or a harder puzzle (4 stars). If you go in order of numbers, they will progressively get harder. The puzzle will list the animals used for the puzzle in a rectangle on the bottom. If there is no rectangle shown, you will use all 9 animal tiles. Some puzzles will show an assigned space where you can place the matching magnet on that space, but you will need to figure out where the other animals go. Some puzzles will list if a certain animal needs to be in that column or row, while others will list that certain animals can’t go in certain columns or rows.
The Verdict
Neighborhood Hide & Seek
This is my 10 year old daughter’s favorite game of the 4. She thinks this is the toughest of the 4 games, so she feels like it challenges her more than the others. The game gives you some clues, but as you place your tiles you will need to adjust them when placing more and more tiles. You know there are only so many directions, or can only flip a tile so many times, so you eventually discover the correct position of the tile. But, it will take some time and testing to get to it. Plus, it’s fun to see who you find for the hide and seek game.
Pixel Party
This is my 8 year old’s favorite game of the 4. He also thinks this is the hardest game of the 4 and it takes more of his time to play it, where some of the others he tried and quickly wanted to move on from. This game is easy to place the tiles, but then you again will need to match white and black squares with the white and black squares on the tiles. This might require some re-arranging, but there is only so many positions and changing until you complete the puzzle.
Tangram Adventure
This game uses the tangrams that us kids in the 90s know all too well. You will be placing these shapes to make different pictures, and my kids and I do agree that many of the puzzles were super easy, so this might be better for younger kids. There were some decent puzzles with the harder sheets, but overall we were hoping to have more difficult patterns to make with the shapes.
Sudoku Forest
This tended to be my kid’s least favorite game of the bunch, solely because they felt like it was too easy and were able to complete the hardest puzzles very quickly. I think this game has the best potential, honestly. I think if you had 2 sets of animals and then had to use them like other sudoku, then the puzzles would be tougher, and this would be the number 1 game. Even if there were 4 large boxes with 4 of each animal, this would be a “bomb” game. As it is, this is probably most friendly for 4, 5, or 6 year olds.
Overall, the games all come with top of the line components. These games are travel friendly because they are all magnetic and can be play within the tin box it comes with. Travel is easy with these, as the boxes won’t get ruined, and you can keep unused components in the bigger part of the tin while using the lid to play the game. The games are designed to be puzzles for kids, and they all do a great job with that. I’d love to see more tougher puzzles in all of them, but this would require more puzzle sheets, and probably a larger tin.
We used these when we actually did a road trip, and the games worked great in the car, as they helped the kids be occupied with some puzzles. They enjoyed the components and used them without losing anything. And they ultimately were excited when completing a puzzle and wanted to continue to share this news with us.
Images via Chip Theory Games
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