Animal Upon Animal

Excellent, Fun Game; Beware the Appeal to Toddlers

My daughter, who is almost 4, received this for Christmas this year. We’ve had a few opportunities to play it, but it is difficult because my two-year old is dangerously crazy about the pieces.

The game consists of 7 different small wooden animals. There are four sets of animals for a total of 28 playing pieces plus a die and a wooden alligator that forms the base of the stack. They are all quite small, something I realized before ordering, but it really is hard to get the idea of size from the picture, so here are the measurements:

The die, which is larger than standard dice is a .75" square.
Aligator: 4″ × 1″
Penguins: 1.25″ × .75″
Frilled Lizards: 1.25″ × 1″
Hedgehogs: 1.3″ × 1.2″
Snakes: 2.8″ × .4″
Toucans: 1.4″ × 1.25″
Sheep: 1.75″ × 1.4″
Monkeys: 1.75″ × 1″

The gameplay is as follows:

Seven animals per player, for up to four players. Each players receives one of each kind of animal.

First player rolls the die which has a number of options: A single dot commands you place one animal of your choice, a double dot is two animals of your choice, a crocodile image means you add to the base of the stack, a hand means you give another player your piece to stack (thus meaning that other player will incur the penalty if they knock the tower down), and a ‘?’ which means another player chooses which piece you have to stack next, which means they can of course do you in by choosing a difficult piece, like the sheep who is larger, heavier, and has less grippy edges.

Of course, he who brings down the whole pile is the loser. The winner is the one who uses all their pieces without bringing about animal catastrophe, and if you just knock a couple of pieces down, they just go back in your pile, setting you behind a bit in your mission.

This game proves to be a bit more difficult than you might imagine. The smallness of the pieces and that silky smooth Haba lacquer make the stacking a challenge. And of course the die adds unpredictability, making this a fun game that isn’t ‘too easy’.

I would highly recommend it to preschoolers well past the mouthing stage; with my only caveat being you might want to hold off if you have younger (below age 3) children, as the appeal of the animals is too great and pieces definitely too small for a younger child.

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Another great HABA toy

This colorful and unique game set was a hit in our house. Many ways to play with this one but building the pyramid is a fun challenge for kids of various ages and adults too!

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great patience training toy

We bought this for my niece for Christmas almost 1 year ago. She had fun playing with it with the other children. It does take a lot of patience to try to stack them high and creative imagination on how you should/can stack them. it’s fun and challenging even for adults.

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cute but small pieces

The pieces of this game are small and definitely a choking hazard for an infant, hence the minimum 4+ age on the box. I was hoping to replace a Tarata New Zealand game and this looked very similar but too small for a child under 4. It will be great for when she’s older so we’ve put it in storage :-) The pieces are colorful and look very well made.

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fun it up

this game creates lots of laughter, we can’t get enough. it takes just the “right” amount of skill

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