A beautiful game idea with moderate implementation

Games in which it comes to feeding animals, are always very popular with children. The game of Haba convinces with its appealing design and the beautiful design of the game material. The illustrations have a very friendly and very stable, which can be placed on the field, so that the animals can go really, excited. However, it turns here for a child the first hurdle. The barn can be put in the bottom recesses on the board by means of small noses. Unfortunately, this holds only as long as is not pushed to the stable, and at the latest when placing the feeders of stable slips the first time out of the recesses and a piece of wide works on again. Even the barn itself is only conditionally usable alone for children from two years because it must be ensured during assembly and disassembly to fold the barn in the right direction, otherwise takes the enthusiasm quickly to an abrupt end.

The pieces are printed on both sides in this game, so they also invite you to be shared with the stable on the free game. About the game idea, which is described in the manual, however can be argued. The notion that the farmer has dreamy throughout the day to bring in place the feeders in the barn, and the animals have to do this now itself, seems a bit far-fetched. This is not necessarily taken from the exciting world of the young child, in which peasants are tirelessly working in their fields and very well take care of course to their animals. Why the children the farmer can not simply help in his work, and the animals may lead to feeding to jointly bring these baskets, not just seen. Why some of the feeders must be collected in the lake, also remains to be seen, but not hidden children and leads game after game over and over again to the same unspeakable question: "Why the baskets are in the water?" To which everyone would like to know an answer.

The game execution can still be a little too complex for younger children, the rules can be easily changed but little, so that the level of difficulty can be adjusted individually. Although the game is described as a cooperative game with an additional competitive variant actually is however already the cooperative variant not really cooperative. Because it can not be moved around all the animals of all children and all try together to collect the food. Instead, each player takes care only to a particular animal and brings only this the baskets into the barn. The end for the individual players heard clearly at a competitive match: If a player has brought all Feeders his animal in the barn and parked his animals there, so there is this nothing else to do, all of his moves have been completed and it has the Game consistent way thus recovered.

The rule of the game, that player is now to help the other players, collect the food baskets of those animals and to bring their animals into the barn, makes this game far from being a cooperative game. On the contrary. Especially for children it can be extremely frustrating when the player who is already finished, the gameplay of the remaining two players now engaged even begins to want to bring their animals into the barn. In the worst case, that player wins one more time with the animal of another child and the frustration of other teammates thus increases even further. A proper cooperative variant significantly different.

Conclusion: A beautiful game idea with an appealing game material, but unfortunately only moderate implementation.