Once upon a time … there were single player brainteasing logic games for children aged 3 to 7 years old. That’s not a fairy tale, SmartGames do a range of children’s logic puzzle games based around well-known fairy tales. Several years ago, we already played the SmartGames Little Red Riding Hood Deluxe. As I love logic and puzzle games and toys that educate, I thought that I would give the SmartGames SnowWhite Deluxe a try.
SmartGames SnowWhite Deluxe is a single player logic game designed to introduce young children to logical thinking as well as the use of symbols. It is suitable for children aged 4-7 years old (although as an adult some of the harder challenges are fun to do). It has 48 different challenges, ranging from Starter to Master, and each challenge only has one solution to find SnowWhite.
In the box:
- 3D House
- 7 Dwarves
- SnowWhite
- Witch
- Booklet with 48 Challenges & Solutions
- Extra Storybook
Unlike Little Red Riding Hood, which was played on a horizontal 3D board with a house in a forest, SnowWhite is played vertically in a 3D house. You can play the challenges on both sides of the house, inside and outside. The game house is a plastic house with colour coded closable shutter windows. The floors of the house have grooves within them so that you can securely click into place SnowWhite, the 7 dwarfs and the Wicked Witch so that they do not easily dislodge, meaning no upset kids if they knock the house over mid challenge.
Where is SnowWhite? The aim of the game is to find out where to put SnowWhite between the 7 dwarfs and the wicked witch? And there are 48 different challenges to do so.
The challenge book contains 48 challenges across 4 levels: Starter, Junior, Expert and Master. Half of the challenges use the interior of the house and half use the exterior. All the challenges in the book are beautifully illustrated and help to provide context for the game (the house in the illustrations is the same as the plastic game house, and the book uses the same coloured-coded dwarfs to tell the story as the ones used in the game). There is no text for young players to read.
This is a single player game, the player sits in front of the house with the challenge book and places a small number of characters into the room slots, as indicated in the easy to follow diagrams in the challenge book. The aim of the game is to use logical thinking and problem solving skills to try and work out where the other pieces should be placed. There is also some extra information with the challenges to show what room a particular dwarf does or doesn’t go in / which dwarfs may or may not be in a room together etc., and this along with the available slots and whether twins or singletons need placing means that there is only one possible solution per challenge. The solutions are shown in the back of the book, meaning the child or a parent can easily and quickly check the solution is correct.
Overall, the SmartGames SnowWhite Deluxe logic game is an excellent, fun and challenging game for young thinkers to get their brain around. It encourages cognitive thinking, problem solving and logic skills as well as teaching children how to read, interpret and follow diagrams from the book.
Half of the challenges use the interior of the house and half use the exterior. The interior challenges mean that all the playing surfaces can be seen as the inside of the house is orientated towards the player. When playing the exterior challenges, the house is turned the other way so that you see the door and windows – depending on challenge some of the shutters are closed. Whilst I don’t think the exterior challenges are any more technically difficult, they do seem to add an extra dimension as the child also must mentally visualise who might be behind a closed door or window shutter.
The challenges start off at a good level to introduce the concept and are not so difficult as to put young players off but as they get more confident, they gradually get harder as you work through the book, with the Master challenges quite tricky.
The quality of the components is excellent and will easily stand up to heavy-handed play of young children – a very well-made game. The components are bright, colourful, and visually appealing to their preschool audience. It even comes with a family friendly picture book with a modern twist on the original story.
This is a fun game with plenty of educational value. With a price tag of £19.99, I think this game is fantastic value for the quality of the pieces, the challenging playability and the educational value. It is one that I would wholeheartedly recommend to parents with preschool children.
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £19.99
For more information, visit smarttoysandgames.co.uk. Available to buy from Amazon here.
Disclosure: All thoughts and opinions are my own. This review uses an affiliate link which I may receive a small commission from if you purchase through the link.
