Customer Reviews

Ravensburger Mystery Garden - Children's Game

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Let me preface this by saying, I am now a big Ravensburger fan. I have a verbal, game loving 3 1/2 year old. He is obsessed with Junior Labrynth (sp?) which ranks as one of the best children's games I have ever seen. It teaches kids to think ahead - so is a great precursor to chess. Plus it is ghoulish in tenor, so kids love it. With this is mind, I purchased mystery garden and the enchanted forest. They are both wonderful. Mystery garden is the simplest - it is just a 20 questions game, but it is made visual and has magical elements, so it is so much better for children. It teaches them to learn to ask general questions "Can you eat it?" as opposed to limited ID questions, "Is it the blueberries?". My son loves it and is beginning to grasp the concept of narrowing down the options through careful questioning. Enchanted forest is also a MUST HAVE. A+ to this lovely company.

This game is a novel spin on 20 questions. A player uncovers a card with an image and other players take turns trying to guess what it is. If the image is correctly guessed that player moves toward the top. Each image on the card is somewhere on the board, hidden in a rich and crowded garden that is so packed with details it could have come straight from an "I Spy" or "Where is Waldo?" page.

My problem with the game, and my reason for only awarding 3-stars is its size. The game board is maybe 12x9 inches and, to make matters worse, comes in (2) pieces that fit together like a puzzle. I thought it was a mistake when I opened the box. What was Ravensbuger thinking on this one? As it stands, the game board is much to small for all the images crammed into it and unless you have a completely level surface, the board keeps detaching -- there goes playing on the carpet.

Great idea -- poor implementation.

My child could play this at 3 and it was a welcome relief from Candyland! It's a simple, imaginative game that the whole family can enjoy.

This is a great game because of its simlicity. There is a big detailed picture and a bunch of tiles with pieces of the big picture on them. One player selects a tile and the other players ask yes and no questions to figure out what the tile is. We love to play this game as a family.

We bought this toy for our children, ages 4 and 5, for Christmas. We have played it several times a week since then and have purchased four more as gifts. My son has been in speech therapy since he was two and this game has even helped to further develop his language skills. We love it and enjoy it as a top pick for family game time.

This is basically 20 questions...but that was a new concept to my four-year-old. He quickly grasped the right questions to ask that would narrow the options at the beginning of the game, which actually made him not want to play it more than a few times in a row because it got a little monotonous. However, we have owned the game for a year now and it still gets played fairly regularly, which definitely makes it a four-star game in my opinion!

We purchased this game when our girls were 4 and 6. They are still enjoying it a year later. Excellent quality and educational as well.

This game is just right for my daughter who will soon be six. She likes playing it, and she is pretty good in asking questions and getting to the right answer. It's fun for older kids, too.

I did not have any problem with the game field being two parts - since we always play on table, not carpet. I would not say that it's too small and the pictures are minuscular - they are rather comfortable size, we don't need to strain the eyes playing it.

It's a fun and enjoyable game.

Pros: easy to learn, interesting for wide range of ages
Cons: possible to memorize the game after a while

My six-year-old daughter got this game for Christmas. It was fast and easy to set up, and the rules are very simple and understandable - each player draws a card that has a small picture on it. Each of the pictures are somewhere on the game board. Players ask yes or no questions to try to figure out the picture on the card, which the first player answers. Each time a question is asked, a peg is moved so that the number of questions can be counted. If the picture is not correctly guessed after a certain number of questions, the first player keeps the card for a point. The first player to three points wins.

Our six-year-old caught on to the game after a few rounds and really enjoyed the challenge of asking and answering questions. Our three-year-old daughter struggled a little with the Q&A, but that is to be expected. For that age, it would probably be better to have the children asking questions (that could be more than just yes or no) and an adult answering questions. I can imagine that several six-year-old players would be able to play this game without help from an adult. If someone played it long enough, it would be possible to memorize the pictures and work out a question list that would guarantee that you guess each picture with a minimum number of questions. That would take a fair amount of time and effort, so I doubt that will be a problem for most players.

This is a great game for working on verbal and observation skills in young children. My 5 and 7 year old love to play, and we all have fun. You draw a card that has a small portion of the game board on it. This is your item. Other players ask yes/no questions about your item and try to guess which item you have.

The board has a pathway and you can play to "win" My kids enjoy just the guessing portion, so we haven't bothered with the path. The pictures are lovely and creative and all the pieces are sturdy coated cardboard.