Before bed last night, my gang sat down to play Take the Cake, a brand new game from Gamewright, that’s simple enough for the Mouse (age 3), yet fun enough for the Bear (age 6). Take the Cake provides the right mixture of fun and challenge.
The idea behind Take the Cake centers around shapes, colors and, at times, decision making. Cupcake cards are lined up and after a roll of the die, each player gets to work the sprinkle shaker. The player then matches the fallen confections with the needed sprinkles on each cupcake. When a card, er cupcake, is completed that player gets to take it. The players must be able to match up shapes and colors, making Take the Cake ideal for a young learner (the pieces however, are small, so beware of playing this game around kids still in possession of their childish oral fixation). The decision making part, and what we spent most of the game trying to explain to the Mouse, comes when choosing where to put the sprinkles; the 1st open space you see or the one that completes a cupcake, allowing you to take it! Minimal strategy, probably not enough to even warrant that word, but enough to make the game a little more challenging for younger players. The gameplay can be made more advanced by dealing cards, instead of the open-faced community card setup, then having to sprinkle-fy your own cupcakes. A useful alternative as your kids mature.
You can probably guess that shaking out the sprinkles is a blast for little kids, but wait until you get down to the last sprinkle or two left in the shaker! In our final contest last night, the Mouse and Bear each had five cupcakes, I had 4 and the Mrs, well, she didn’t fair too well. There was 1 cupcake left with just one sprinkle needed to take it. The anticipation of winning for the girls was great, while I was simply gunning for a tie. We went around 3-4 times rolling the die, shaking the heck out of the thing, but the final sprinkle couldn’t be freed. The girls were exasperated and hilarious at the same time.
After school today, playing Take the Cake was 1st on the Bear’s list of things to do. This time, Papa gobbled up the most treats, happily with zero impact on my calorie intake.
Take the Cake is a sugary sweet little game sure to delight your young kids.
*Take the Cake was provided to OWTK for review considerations. The opinions expressed above are honest and unbiased – no arm twisting took place in the review process.
Full disclosure: Gamewright Games has also provided games to be used as giveaways during the OWTK Kids Concert Series.
