The Ladybugs' Costume Party (or Maskenball der Käfer) is a game for two to five players published by Selecta Spiel. It is a cooperative family/children's game that helps enhance your child's memory and puzzle solving skills. The box states that its for ages four and up, but I'm fairly certain a child can play this as early as three years of age.
A game runs around fifteen to twenty minutes regardless of the number of players.
COMPONENTS:As with all Selecta Spiel publications, the components of this game are stunning. The game includes a multilingual rulebook and language independent components.
In the box you'll find a handful of yellow wooden ants, eight wooden ladybugs (pictured below) with magnetic "noses", a spinner, alot of wooden cylinders that fit on the back of the ladybugs, and a colorful and sturdy game board.
My daughter, Kashieu, loved the components at first sight. I've barely opened the rulebook and she's already bugging me to teach her how to play the game. I cannot say enough how akin to "toys" the components of Selecta Spiel games are. Great, great components... well worth the price tag.
GAMEPLAY:Setting up the game takes a little patience. You have to fit each ladybug with five tiny wooden cylinders of the same color, and lay them atop the corresponding colored petal. This is the one part of the game that I find a tad fiddly... the initial placement and future relocations of the colored wooden cylinder (more on that later).
Every player takes turns in spinning the spinner on the board. If the spinner end up pointing to one of the eight ladybugs sitting on the petals, the player then moves that ladybug to visit the other ladybugs.
As I stated above, each ladybug has a magnet in its "nose"; if the visiting ladybug "likes" the ladybug, they then swap "spots" (each ladybug has five wooden cylinders of one color), and she continues on to visit other ladybugs. If the ladybugs do not like each other, the turn is over. Once a ladybug has five spots of different colors, she is ready for the party and removed from the flower and placed on the leaf on the bottom of the board, signifying that that ladybug is ready to go to the party (pictured below). Since it is a cooperative game, all the players win if all of the ladybugs are ready.
But how do you know that the ladybugs like/dislike each other? Ah... there's the beauty of this game. Since each ladybug has a magnet for a nose, if the ladybugs "kiss" then they like each other and can happily swap spots (wooden cylinders). If they don't like each other, they literally turn away from each other, signifying their dislike (pictured below).
But if the spinner points to one of the smaller leaves in between the colored petals, then the player doesn't get to move any of the ladybugs, but instead must take an ant from the pool and place it along the side of the board. If all seven of the ants are on the board the players lose the game.
The rules are very simple, the gameplay very basic. Is the game luck dependent? Yes, very much so. Does my daughter care? No. She loves it.
WHY CHILDREN WOULD LIKE IT:As I said, the components come close to being "toys", added to the simplicity of the gameplay make this a game that most children would enjoy. The cooperative aspect also appeals to my daughter, as we can win together (and also lose together). She easily grasped the concept of the game, and enjoys puzzling out which ladybug likes which. She also enjoys sending them all to the party.
FINAL THOUGHTS:You could do worse than choosing The Ladybugs' Costume Party as one of your kids' first games. Its easy, colorful, beautiful and cooperative (which seems to be at a premium when it comes to children's games). As I said, the game is very luck dependent, but I really don't mind because my daughter enjoys herself so much every time we play this. She has even taught her nanny how to play the game, and she has also taught her friends (who come over occasionally) how to play the game as well and her friends have also enjoyed it tremendously.
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