Hoyle Kids Games

Age Group: Age 2 to 5, Age 4 to 8, Age 8 and Up, Adults Type: Board and Card Games Price: $30

PC version requires:
Windows 95/98/2000/ME, Pentium 133, 16 MB RAM, 100 MB HD, 4x CD ROM

Mac version requires:
PowerPC or Power Mac G3 including iMac, System 7.5.3, 32 MB, 4x CD ROM, 100 MB HD

Description:

Have you ever played Old Maid with a talking dinosaur or maybe a game of Chinese Checkers with an alien? I bet your Checkerboard doesn't have frogs hopping on lily pads! Hoyle Kids Games has these plus many more games to keep the kids entertained for a long, long time. With a variety of animated players, and the fun Facemaker that allows you to create characters, you can play with different characters every time.

Enjoy the fun as you play Old Maid, Hangman, Checkers, Chinese Checkers, Crazy 8s, Go Fish, Battling Ships, Memory Match, Snakes & Ladders, Placer Racer, War, Speedy Racer, Music Game, and Tic Tac Toe.

Features:

• 14 Different games
• Multiple difficulty levels
• Multiple game play options
• Facemaker to create custom player
• 8 Animated players
• Genie provides rules and helpful hints
• 1 to 4 player games
• Automatically saves games
• Laptop compatible

Technical Aspects:

The help is available both in spoken form by the genie or in written instructions which is helpful both to the hearing impaired and for pre-readers.

Report and Conclusions:

The game title Hoyle Kids Games is a bit misleading. It tends to make one think this is only for children, but that's far from the truth, it's a family game that can be played by a wide range of ages, including adults. I, myself, am hooked on a game entitled Placer Racer. I'm not one to normally get hooked easily on games. I have enjoyed the Chinese Checkers as it was a game I didn't know how to play and learned easily with help from the game. Each of my 3 children (ages 12, 6, and 5 years) had their own favorites and vied for the time on the computer. A nice feature is that most were multi-player games and they could play together. One game, Speedy Racer, is actually a typing game and will help increase your speed. My children could not type fast enough for this game and enjoyed watching mom furiously type as fast as she could in order to save the 3 Pigs' houses from falling words.

One of the greatest features of this game is the variety of help options. The Hoyle Genie can help you out by giving you verbal instructions, click on the instructions to read them, click on a button to find out what to do next, or even click on a button for the Genie to show you how to play your turn. If your children are not familiar with playing the actual card or board games, such as Crazy 8's, this software will teach them the game. Your children will learn how to play the actual game and you may find, as I did, the children asking for the same game in card format to play as a family.

Did we like this game? Can you hear the loud "YES!" that just echoed through our house? This will be the software that will have the longest longevity and be the most played over time than any of the other games we have. The variety of games, skill levels, options, players, and fun just makes this game a great buy for the money. I am wholeheartedly recommending it to everyone I know.

You can download a Mac demo.
You can download a PC demo.