• Kids will love every minute of Cranium Cariboo as each turn gives them the chance to match fun drawings

• Rounds of Cariboo last about 10 to 15 minutes, great for young attention spans

• Kids learn while matching letters, numbers, shapes and colors AND practice sharing and turn-taking by passing the key with each turn

• Cranium Cariboo comes with a Cariboo Island game board, six treasure balls, two sets of cards (beginner & advanced), one key, and a treasure chest

• Cranium Cariboo is the magical treasure hunt game designed especially for young children

• Unlock secret doors, and even discover hidden treasures

Variation #1:

Turn Cariboo into a "rummy" and logic game but dealing a hand of five cards to each player. Each turn you must turn in *two* cards that have the characteristic on the box to open it. After playing these cards, you can open the lid. Refresh your hand.
This makes it challenging to figure out how to play out your hand in order to open a certain lid. A player also has the opportunity to "turn in" his hand, or trade from 1-5 cards with an opponent, getting rid of "dead" cards.
(Try with three matching characteristics - if you enjoy this kind of thinking a better game called "Set" which Amazon sells does this very well).

Variation #2:

Close lids after opening. The child must remember which have been opened and closed, turning this into a good memory exercise.

Variation #3:

Rather than the last ball wins, assign a consistent or variable point value to the colored balls or the order in which they appear (first ball worth 1, second 2, etc), with a bonus for the last ball.

Variation #4:

Add a "tic-tac-toe" like element, with points, to selecting which lids to open. e.g 3 lids in a column with X points, 5 lids in row worth Y points.

Good luck! Apply similar thinking to games in your closet and encourage your child to do so as well and you might find a budding game designer!

46 of 49 found the following review helpful:


Best family game on the market!  Nov 29, 2002 By fair_deal_guy "BB"
Man, it's hard to find a good family game these days. If you've already bought the classics, then there are very few games out there that aren't simply rehashed TV episodes. True, the kids might clamor for a Powerpuff Girls or Dexter's Lab game, but they're poorly designed and the gameplay doesn't even sustain the kids through the first evening of play.

Cranium Cariboo, on the other hand, has enough sound and motion and excitement to keep the attention of the video game generation while still doing some genuine teaching. Granted, it's not PhD-level stuff, but this is about fun, not homework. We found Cranium Cariboo to be the sort of game that almost always gets taken out of the game closet first, and that's the highest recommendation our family can give any game--especially at gift giving time. Enjoy!

33 of 34 found the following review helpful:


Cariboo is better than TV!  Oct 20, 2002 By Matthew Cooper "yayapo"
My son played this game all day! The television never got turned on! Levi was as excited to play this game with us as by himself. He played it over and over again. I'm sure the initial excitement will wear off- but every visitor to our home is sure to be offered the Cariboo challenge!

Other good points-- there is not a lot of set-up involved to play this game. The game is fairly self-contained--the pieces tend not to stray too far.

17 of 17 found the following review helpful:


Lots of fun but could be better with one change  Oct 25, 2002
My 5yr old loves this game! It's one she can play over & over, sometimes even by herself. My one problem with the game is that the "doors" that are unlocked do not have interchangeable cards. By the 5th round of playing, my daughter had practically memorized the board. Being able to change the cards on the doors would make the game much more challenging. Other than that one alteration, this game is excellent for preschoolers.

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