A Game My Always Moving Ten Year Old Son Actually Loves.

I

have a ten year old son that is pretty much only happy when he has a ball in his hand or when he is sprinting.  Trying to get him to sit down at the table to play a board game is like trying to get an eagle to touch the bottom of the ocean.  Not gonna happen … unless we can do something that involves hand eye coordination.  These games in the board game world are known as manual dexterity games.  And my ten year old loves them!

After reviewing games for a while, you become a little jaded with the thought of stacking yet another thing on top of another thing in a manual dexterity game.  You wonder if a game company can really come up with a fresh new spin on the genre.  The answer here is Wonder Forge has absolutely been able to accomplish this!  So how is this stacking game different than every other manual dexterity game on the market?  Well, first of all it looks wicked cool. 

Somehow Target has managed to secure the exclusive rights to Wonder Forge’s new line of games and of the three we have reviewed they have all been home runs!  Target should be thanking their lucky stars to have partnered with such a stellar game studio as Wonder Forge because these games look great and more importantly, play amazing.  Stick Stack is true to the high standard set by the other two games (Suspicion and Really Bad Art).

In addition to Stick Stack looking like a piece of modern art, it also has a singular game mechanic that I have not seen before.  Each stick has 2-3 colors on it.  This is important because on your turn you must add a stick to the leaning tower being created by everyone (this is the same as just about every manual dexterity game).  However, with Stick Stack, you must match the colors on your stick to those same colors already on the leaning tower.  You cannot just put it anywhere you want.  It must match all of the colors of the pieces of the tower it is resting on.  So if your stick is blue and orange, you must find a blue and orange spot on the tower that your stick can touch. 

In the end, fresh ideas in the manual dexterity category are hard to come by.  This is a shame, because this type of game is perfect for people like my son who do not want to learn long boring rules for a game, or play a long boring game.  Wonder Forge has managed to create a new game that is different from the rest of the pack and is a fast play.  Perfect for those spare 15 minutes while you are waiting for the next big thing to happen.  The game is so well liked, however, you might just find that the game of Stacking Sticks is the next big thing to happen!

Find it here on Target.com