SNAP Review – Micro Macro Kids: Crazy City Park

We have not been shy about loving the MicroMacro series of seek-and-find games. But the first one, Micro Macro: Crime City, had a lot of content that wasn’t really fit for kids.

That has all changed with Micro Macro Kids.

Game

This is a SNAP review for Micro Macro Kids: Crazy City Park.

Micro Macro Kids is a seek and find puzzle game with 22 cases to solve. It’s intended for 1-4 investigators ages 6 and up (with an adult to do any necessary reading). Each session should take between 15-45 minutes.

Micro Macro Kids was designed by Johannes Sich. It’s published by Edition Spielwiese, and was adapted for the United States by Hachette Boardgames.

Art

Let’s talk about the art in this game. There are two main pieces here – the city map and the investigator book.

The city map is 22 inches by 30 inches, and it’s absolutely packed with line-drawn illustrations. In MicroMacro style, it’s full of goofy characters doing all sorts of things all over the map.

The investigator book is square and has a thick spiral binding so it sits flat. It blows up small chunks of the map illustrations and puts them against a bright green background. And it pairs these with short, clear instructions for each case.

Mechanics

Ok, so what are these cases? Let’s talk about the mechanics of the game.

There’s a series of 22 cases in Crazy City Park. Open up the spiral-bound book to the case you’re going to work on – the first case is called “The Helmet”. You’ll notice both in the table of contents and before every case, there will be an image exemplifying the theme of the case, and a difficulty rating between 1-5 stars.

Now that you’ve chosen your case, flip the page and read the text out loud.

Each case introduction gives you a setting – with cut out pictures – and a mystery to solve. The facing page give you your first task – in this case, “Find Fernando by the beach!”

Set the investigator book aside and start examining the map. When you think you’ve found what you’re looking for, place a marker over it on the map, then the “lead investigator” can check your answer by turning to the next page, which will give an answer in words AND with a more complete picture from the map. If you got it wrong, the “lead investigator” can give everyone else a hint for where to look.

Once you’ve definitely found the answer, look at the instructions on the NEXT facing page. In this case: Find the house where Fernando lives!

Most cases will have you trace one or more characters’ paths all around the city map and through several pages of questions, letting YOU discover the answers to each mystery.

You don’t have to do the cases in order, but try not to browse through the book too much so you don’t spoil the cases for yourself.

Solve the cases and enjoy your time in Crazy City Park!

Expectations

So Anitra, what did you expect from this game?

As we already mentioned, we’ve really enjoyed the MicroMacro series. But we shied away from reviewing them until we tried the jigsaw puzzle this past winter, which was the first one we’ve seen that was completely family-friendly in its content.

So I was super excited to find out there was going to be a version of the game specifically intended FOR KIDS! I expected all the detail we love from this seek-and-find series, with kid-friendly mysteries to solve.

I love that spiral book format. It makes so much sense for a game designed to be held in hands which are, let’s face it, prone to losing things. The moment I saw it in the box it clicked and made so much sense to me.

Surprises

But let’s talk about some surprises, too.

My biggest surprise were the new things added that make this MicroMacro friendlier than the previous games: the book that you mentioned and these clear, transparent markers. It’s amazing how much of a difference both of these things made to playing the game.

The book is much larger and easier to read than the cards from the original. Putting this in book format means you can’t spread the questions out – but it’s so much better for a group setting.

And I absolutely love the transparent markers. They make it so much easier to keep your place – or to note something that might not be an answer to the CURRENT question but that seems to fit the path of the character you’re looking at, so you can keep track of it for later.

I totally agree on the markers. Especially as a family, it’s basically impossible to play a game and not get interrupted by the door, by someone who isn’t playing the game, or something else. And so, these markers really really help, remember what you’re actually doing.

We used to stick our finger on the map and try to keep it there while we’re reading the next card; and this is so much easier than that.

The last thing that surprised me about this game was just how challenging some things were to find, even on just two- or three- star difficulty puzzles! This game rewards diligent, careful searching; there’s a lot of information that’s partially hidden, like behind buildings or behind other people. But there’s also usually some redundancy. I might miss one or two instances of a person walking away because they’re partially obscured, but if I continue to look in the right direction and find other pieces of the puzzle, it still all fits together. It still works and tells you what’s going on.

Recommended?

So Anitra, were you able to find a recommendation for this game?

Ah, yes. We highly recommend Micro Macro Kids: Crazy City Park, for ANYONE who might like to work through a seek and find mystery, no matter what their age.

The content is family-friendly but not juvenile (most of the time), and the supporting material makes this the most pleasant Micro Macro activity we’ve tried. If you’ve bounced off it in the past, you owe it to yourself to give this one a try – even if you’re just a kid at heart.

We give it 5 mysteries out of 5.

And that’s Micro Macro Kids: Crazy City Park – in a SNAP!

Get your own copy from Hachette Boardgames USA, on Amazon, or at your friendly local game store.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Micro Macro Kids: Crazy City Park from Hachette for this review.

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SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?