Fairytale Charms Review
There is (or at least had been before this came along) a bit of a gap in my games collection. I have loads of games that I can play with my 6-year-old son (albeit a bit simplified): Heroscape, Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit, Gulo Gulo, and even Descent when I feel up to the challenge. But there wasn’t much that interested my 4-year-old daughter.
You see, she is a ‘girly’ girl, and those other games are dismissed with a wave of her hand as being “for boys”. But being a ‘girly’ girl, she likes fairy tales, and princesses, and jewellery and all those ‘sugar and spice’ things that the Fairytale Charms game is packed to the brim with…
It’s also exceedingly simple to play, and simply glows with gimmicks to keep the little ones interested!
Ok, so you start with a charm bracelet with no charms on it (you wear it if your under ten, or put it near you if you are a grown-up with puffy wrists), and during the game you control the Fairy Godmother and attempt to pick up the charms and add them to your bracelet. The first Godmother to collect all six charms wins. The charms are a wshing star, a pot of gold, a glass slipper, a four-leaf clover, a wishbone and a prince.
Unusually, the players all control the same piece, moving round a very simple board with only ten spaces on it, rather than having their own piece to move. There is one space where you can try for each of the charms, and two ‘Black Cat’ spaces, and two ‘Take 1 Charm’ spaces. You simply spin the spinner (in the shape of a wand, of course!), and move the Godmother piece. Each of the charm spaces is a very simple fifty-fifty task for the player – either ‘spin’ the rainbow to try and get it to land in the pot of gold, or picka clover leaf, trying to find the four-leaf one, or try and roll a glass slipper instead of a wooden clog, etc. It’s all very basic and very very random. If you land on a Black Cat space, you must take the black cat charm and add it to your bracelet – and you can’t win while you have it.
So it’s an oversimplified roll-and-move mechanic, with added in randomness in the form of fifty-fifty guesses for the charms, and totally-screw-you-up spaces that can ruin your game. But I love it!
The bits and pieces are pretty incredible for such a basic game – the bracelets are kinda pretty (if you’re into that kind of thing), and the charms themselves are instantly recognisable and incredibly twee, the randomisers are great – a tree stump with two clover stalks poking out that you have to pick one of, or two telescopes that you need to choose from with only one having a wishing star inside. The board is colourful and simple, and the rules are so basic that even my little angel with the attention span of a goldfish can keep it together long enough to play all the way through.
It’s different and gimmicky and fits neatly into the small gap that bridges my son and daughter, so we can all enjoy it (even my son will play), and get some quality time out of a totally random affair…!
Summary
Presentation: Excellent. The game comes packed with goodies and is sturdy and eye-catching. The board is pretty and functional, and the bits and pieces do their job, while being evocative of the genre (there really is a spinning rainbow that might or might not land in the pot of gold). 8.9/10
Clarity of Rules: I think you’d have to try pretty hard to screw this up – the game really is very simple,and could probably be figured out without a rulesheet. That said, the sheet included is pretty compregensive and even includes a brief example of the ‘pot of gold’ randomiser, showing you exactly how to use it. 7.9/10
Game Length: Now, it can drag a little, but that is from a grown-up’s perspective. The kids don’t seem to be able to get enough of it, and will quite willingly play game after game. The thing is, because it is a random game, it could go on forever – but rarely goes on for more than fifteen or twenty minutes (I’m only complaining because I never win). 7.6/10
Value: For what appeared to be a throw-away birthday present, I am pleasantly surprised by the amount of fun we’ve had from this one. After a read of the rules, and a thorough understanding that this game includes everything I hate about boardgames, I fully expected to loathe it, but am really glad that we have it in our repertoire. 7.4/10
Overall: This usually only comes out when I am home alone with the little angel, and she speaks those dreaded words “play with me…” But I am quite happy to get this one down, and have a bash at collecting my charms before she does (oh yes, I definitely play to win!), and then spend the next half an hour explaining that “you can’t win every time, sweetheart…” 7.8/10 (not an average)
You see, she is a ‘girly’ girl, and those other games are dismissed with a wave of her hand as being “for boys”. But being a ‘girly’ girl, she likes fairy tales, and princesses, and jewellery and all those ‘sugar and spice’ things that the Fairytale Charms game is packed to the brim with…
It’s also exceedingly simple to play, and simply glows with gimmicks to keep the little ones interested!
Ok, so you start with a charm bracelet with no charms on it (you wear it if your under ten, or put it near you if you are a grown-up with puffy wrists), and during the game you control the Fairy Godmother and attempt to pick up the charms and add them to your bracelet. The first Godmother to collect all six charms wins. The charms are a wshing star, a pot of gold, a glass slipper, a four-leaf clover, a wishbone and a prince.
Unusually, the players all control the same piece, moving round a very simple board with only ten spaces on it, rather than having their own piece to move. There is one space where you can try for each of the charms, and two ‘Black Cat’ spaces, and two ‘Take 1 Charm’ spaces. You simply spin the spinner (in the shape of a wand, of course!), and move the Godmother piece. Each of the charm spaces is a very simple fifty-fifty task for the player – either ‘spin’ the rainbow to try and get it to land in the pot of gold, or picka clover leaf, trying to find the four-leaf one, or try and roll a glass slipper instead of a wooden clog, etc. It’s all very basic and very very random. If you land on a Black Cat space, you must take the black cat charm and add it to your bracelet – and you can’t win while you have it.
So it’s an oversimplified roll-and-move mechanic, with added in randomness in the form of fifty-fifty guesses for the charms, and totally-screw-you-up spaces that can ruin your game. But I love it!
The bits and pieces are pretty incredible for such a basic game – the bracelets are kinda pretty (if you’re into that kind of thing), and the charms themselves are instantly recognisable and incredibly twee, the randomisers are great – a tree stump with two clover stalks poking out that you have to pick one of, or two telescopes that you need to choose from with only one having a wishing star inside. The board is colourful and simple, and the rules are so basic that even my little angel with the attention span of a goldfish can keep it together long enough to play all the way through.
It’s different and gimmicky and fits neatly into the small gap that bridges my son and daughter, so we can all enjoy it (even my son will play), and get some quality time out of a totally random affair…!
Summary
Presentation: Excellent. The game comes packed with goodies and is sturdy and eye-catching. The board is pretty and functional, and the bits and pieces do their job, while being evocative of the genre (there really is a spinning rainbow that might or might not land in the pot of gold). 8.9/10
Clarity of Rules: I think you’d have to try pretty hard to screw this up – the game really is very simple,and could probably be figured out without a rulesheet. That said, the sheet included is pretty compregensive and even includes a brief example of the ‘pot of gold’ randomiser, showing you exactly how to use it. 7.9/10
Game Length: Now, it can drag a little, but that is from a grown-up’s perspective. The kids don’t seem to be able to get enough of it, and will quite willingly play game after game. The thing is, because it is a random game, it could go on forever – but rarely goes on for more than fifteen or twenty minutes (I’m only complaining because I never win). 7.6/10
Value: For what appeared to be a throw-away birthday present, I am pleasantly surprised by the amount of fun we’ve had from this one. After a read of the rules, and a thorough understanding that this game includes everything I hate about boardgames, I fully expected to loathe it, but am really glad that we have it in our repertoire. 7.4/10
Overall: This usually only comes out when I am home alone with the little angel, and she speaks those dreaded words “play with me…” But I am quite happy to get this one down, and have a bash at collecting my charms before she does (oh yes, I definitely play to win!), and then spend the next half an hour explaining that “you can’t win every time, sweetheart…” 7.8/10 (not an average)
posted by David Plank at 12:42 PM
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