Chip Theory Kids Independent Play Collection

Here at The Family Gamers, we try to talk about games for all ages. When it comes to young children, this usually means games that parents can play with kids. But every once in a while there’s a game that is perfect for a young child to play alone. It’s amazing when a little one pulls out a game and plays it without an adult’s help.

That’s the case with the Independent Play collection from Chip Theory Kids.

Last year, we reviewed the three games in Chip Theory’s Versus collection: Octo Grabbo, Woodland Rush, and Bear in Mind. Those are competitive games, meant to be played in a small group, like a parent with one or more children. Meanwhile, the Independent Play collection is intended for a parent to hand off to their kid for solo play – maybe.

I’m going to break down each of these four puzzle games: how to play it, the age range it’s best for, and how each one went over with our kid-testers.

Sudoku Forest

Sudoku Forest is a grid puzzle where each animal friend can go in exactly one spot. The simplest puzzles have just four animal friends, and will tell you exactly where most of them go.

Players have to piece together more clues to figure out each row and column as the difficulty increases: from four animal friends, to six, and then to nine.

The box recommends Sudoku Forest for ages 3 and up. We were able to try this one with the largest variety of kid testers, and found that while 3 & 4 year olds liked the animal friends, they still needed some help from an adult to understand how the puzzle was supposed to work. That’s not that surprising, since kids this age don’t usually have the pre-reading skills to allow them to associate a symbol with a whole row or column.

Our testers ages 5 and up were able to work through these puzzles with minimal or no help at all. But the younger testers still liked playing pretend with the animal friends and the grid. This game won’t hold interest for kids who have already learned traditional number-based Sudoku, so it’s probably best under age 10.

Tangram Adventure

Tangram Adventure has 48 puzzles based on classic tangrams. Re-arrange the same set of shapes to create all kinds of pictures.

This set of puzzles builds spatial awareness as well as deduction. The easiest puzzles use a colored dot to show where each shape goes. The player just has to figure out how to orient the shapes. The number of dots decreases as the puzzles get harder, and the colored dots switch to black at puzzle 10.

The box recommends age 4 and up and that feels exactly right for this set. Our four-year-old kid-tester ran through puzzles 1-8 with almost no help at all before we ran out of time. Our three-year-old testers liked trying this one out and re-arranging the shapes on the simplest puzzles. The puzzles increase in difficulty very slowly, and even without the placement dots, the hardest puzzles give a lot of clues as to which shapes fit where. This could be an entertaining diversion even for an adult.

Pixel Party

A more boxy puzzle is the challenge in Pixel Party. Players use a specified set of pixelated black and white polyominoes to fill in a shape while matching a checkerboard pattern. This set of puzzles tends to have multiple solutions, but there are no wrong answers, as long as you match the “pixels”.

Unlike Tangram Adventure, Pixel Party doesn’t give much in the way of clues for placement. It would be best for kids who are a little older (the box recommends starting at age 5). This could also be great for kids enamored with retro/pixelated art such as in Minecraft.

Neighborhood Hide & Seek

Neighborhood Hide & Seek is the most original set of puzzles, and recommended for ages 6 and up. Here, you must use logic and spatial awareness to cover the board with the indicated pieces, leaving one space empty for the “hide-and-seek winner”!

Place a tile in the puzzle over its matching symbol, which should show through the cutout in the piece. Flip or rotate pieces to try them in different orientations! And sometimes you’ll need to pick between duplicate symbols on the map or deduce what belongs on a “mystery” symbol. Not every piece will be used!

Once you’ve placed all the pieces, only one space will be left uncovered. Is there a person there? Then you’ve solved the puzzle and “found” the last hide-and-seeker!

Neighborhood Hide & Seek has the most interesting theme of any of the puzzles, but it’s also the hardest for kids to learn. Our 8-year-old tester struggled a bit to understand the rules. I think with more time (and fewer distractions), it would have gone better. Our testers age 10+ enjoyed the “game” of finding the last person not hiding in the puzzle.

Impressions

The production team did a great job with the sturdy tins for these puzzle sets. The magnets will hold through several puzzle sheets at once, and the puzzle sheets fit nicely in the lid with enough space to get them out again easily. The sheets themselves are a thick, coated paper that is rip-resistant and spill-resistant. These games are perfect for the way kids actually play, whether that’s in the car, on the floor, or while eating a snack.

And all of these puzzles encourage experimentation – placing a piece down, seeing if it works, then moving, flipping, or re-arranging pieces until everything finally comes together.

Sudoku Forest and Neighborhood Hide-and-Seek have the most fun themes for kids. Tangram Adventure and Pixel Party have the advantage of looking more “grown up”, but they’re still solvable at a kid-level. And, of course, you can always check in the rulebook for solutions if a puzzle is too frustrating.

Sudoku Forest and Tangram Adventure are the runaway hits here. Both of them work with three-year-old kids, at least for the first few puzzles. And the kinds of puzzles in these tins are ones that kids won’t grow tired of. One of our youngest testers kept asking for the same Tangram Adventures puzzle repeatedly: he was content to dump out the pieces and “solve” it all over again.

Whether your kid is firmly in the “I do it myself!” stage, or they want a parent’s help to figure things out, the Independent Play puzzles are a great choice that will work throughout these young years, keeping kids’ hands occupied and minds learning.

You can buy each Independent Play puzzle game from Chip Theory for about $20, or buy all four as a discounted set (with some bonus content). If you prefer Amazon, you can find Tangram Adventure and Neighborhood Hide & Seek there.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of the Chip Theory Kids Independent Play Collection for this review.

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