Fireside Games FSG01013 My First Castle Panic, Multicoloured

Product Information

Manage to clear the pile of monsters before they reach the castle and you win, have both the wall and the castle reached by the monsters and you lose. Maybe some house rules, like everyone starting with one of the special boot cards (which allow you to remove anyone from the board and put them back into the bad guy stack) could help provide more strategy and prevent the awful luck that can plague games like this. Playing Castle Panic (a fantastic game) with my 4-year-old felt more like giving instructions to an unwilling robot.

And lastly, one might push all the monsters forward an additional space and require yet another monster drawn!Fireside has done an excellent job with My First Castle Panic, distilling the game down to its most fundamental parts.

But really, I just wish the developers had spent a little more time fine tuning everything so that luck couldn’t be as devastating as it occasionally can be. They love playing it and the ruleset is easy enough that they can understand how to play with minimal assistance from me. Over the past year or so, she has grown tremendously in her ability to listen to rules and follow them, with only a few adjustments to tilt the rules in her favor. While they are too young for Castle Panic, Fireside Games has now addressed that with My First Castle Panic. My First Castle Panic includes some variations to make it easier or harder, and even has special rules for solo play.

I can’t imagine my son still wanting to play this once he’s 6 or 7 but for now it’s a wonderful introduction to the world of board games, teaching him the foundations of waiting for turns, cooperation and strategy and on those points this game does exactly what it sets out to do and if he enjoys it and keeps asking for another game, well that’s the best seal of approval I can give it. Component-wise, all the tokens, castle, wall, and board are made from a nice thick chipboard which will hold up to a lot of playing. After a few games together, I’ll say that although it’s not perfect, I’m still happy it’s in our growing collection of games for younger players.

With two very young kids and a new job, I’m usually just wanting to watch the same show over and over again each night. This is hardly a deal breaker, but for a game with a target demographic of children ages 4-7, I would have thought the cardboard would be a little tougher. however, I think I inadvertently taught my daughter how to quarterback a cooperative board game (oops). If the active player does not have a card they can use, they can ask for help, which allows another player to play a card in the active player’s place. Once an adult shows them how it works, it’d be pretty easy for most older kids to play the game themselves without too much supervision.Taking a more light-hearted spoon to the tower defense game, it was my hope that this could be a good progression from some of the HABA Games we’ve been playing together. If the wall is gone and a new monster runs into the castle, well, the castle is destroyed, and the players lose the game. It’s also cooperative, so when another player “asks for help” (uses a card from your hand) to stop a goblin, it’s no big deal. My daughter promptly told me that no, we need to capture the monster closest to the castle and that I was going to do that.

We played three times in a row when we first played it and they have asked to play it numerous times since then. By choosing the right cards at the right time, together we can win and he feels a sense of accomplishment through actively participating in the game. My wife remarked that she thinks there still needs to be another step between My First Castle Panic and Castle Panic now. The “My First” take on board games has been a fantastic way to introduce our young ones to games we know and love. Roll a dice, move the number of squares and move onto the next player etc etc this one has a bit more to it.My First Castle Panic makes a fantastic gift for the youngest board gamers in your life, and a great entry into the wide world of board gaming. When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. It’s simple and quick to learn and the whole game plays out in around 10-15 minutes which is great for younger children. Each card also sports one or more shapes (square, triangle, circle) in one or more colors (red, green, blue). My First Castle Panic, like its predecessor Castle Panic, is a co-operative game in which players work together to defend their castle, but this game removes the reading requirement of the earlier one and fosters the development of educational skills, such as identifying colors and shapes, problem solving, and turn taking.