Nacho Grande's Friday Game Review: Tiny Park

Happy Friday, everyone!  Today's a good day for me personally because it's my college's "long weekend" - our one day off since the start of school (we don't get holidays like Labor Day or Columbus Day off).  Today's also a good day because I get to talk about one of my other main hobbies besides baseball cards - and that's board games.  Even better, today's board game review is of a game that I recently purchased for my four-year-old son so this is a true family-type game.  The question is:  Is it a game you should pick up for your family?

Tiny Park is a game designed by Marco Teubner and published by German publisher HABA.  HABA is known for publishing relatively high-quality children's games across a variety of game types (cooperative, competitive, and everything in-between).  Over the last few years, my son and I have played through a variety of different HABA offerings and today's game is our latest purchase.

Game Summary:

Tiny Park is ostensibly a tile laying game with a Yahtzee!-esque dice rolling mechanic.  The winner of this competitive game is the person who is able to fill up their personal player board first with various amusement park attractions (tiles).

Game Set-up:

Before starting the game, give each player their own player board.  Then, sort the polyominal tiles into piles based on the six possible shapes/sizes.  Give the dice to the first player and they can begin play!

How to Play:

On your turn, you roll the five chunky, wooden dice (each of which is adorned with six stickers representing the six different attractions that are possible for your theme pack).  

Then, you set aside any dice you wish to keep for the round and reroll those for which you didn't get a desired result.  You can repeat the same keep and roll step a third time (just like Yahtzee!) and then you are "stuck" with whatever your five dice are showing. 

The goal of the game is to fill up your game board with the various polyominal tiles - and to get those tiles you "purchase" them using the results of your die roll.  For example, you may wish to buy a tile that has two planes and two pumpkin trains on it, to do so, you'd need to roll two planes and two pumpkin trains on your turn.  If you manage to roll something that fits with what's available for sale on that turn, you can buy it (only one purchase per turn).  If you can't, then you get nothing that round and the next player goes.

You can only buy the top tile on each of the various shape stacks which means each time someone buys something there's going to be a new combination of possibilities for the next player (sometimes that can mean you can hedge your die rolling bets a bit, other times it means you need to pick something and go for it with the understanding if luck doesn't favor you that turn you'll probably walk away with nothing).  It's a fun little risk/reward calculation and one that young children can definitely learn about via repeated play.  

Winning the Game:

Repeat the die rolling process until someone has filled up their board and then that player is the winner!

My Thoughts:

This is a wonderful game for young kids that doesn't suck for adults to play (in comparison to say a slog of a game like Candy Land).  Each turn presents a series of choices - and for kids it's also a great exercise in taking their die results and comparing that to the available tile choices for that round.  After a tile is selected, there's even more learning involved in terms of the tile placement (for example, I've been working with my son on making more strategic tile placement choices since he has no problem with the purchasing portion of the game).  

Finally, the best part of the whole game is that it's quite quick (I'd say a three person game can easily be completed in 15 minutes maximum).  That's a perfect amount of time for a young child's interests (though admittedly my son and I often play rounds of this back-to-back because he likes the game so much)!

The Bottom Line:

Pros:

• Easy to learn
• Fun risk/reward
• Quick turns, quick game
• Nice illustrations

Cons:

• Stickers have to be applied to the dice before your first game can be played
• Recessed game boards would have been nice to help keep tiles in their place

Overall Score (out of 10):

8:  Very good - enjoy playing and would suggest it

For a kid's game, this one is definitely a winner.  Both kids and adults can enjoy playing together - and with a little luck anyone can emerge victorious!  

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Note:  I've gone back through all of my game reviews and changed my scoring to mimic Board Game Geek's scoring scale.    

Board Game Geek's Rating Scale:

10:  Outstanding - will always enjoy playing

9:  Excellent - very much enjoy playing

8:  Very good - enjoy playing and would suggest it

7:  Good - usually willing to play

6:  Ok - will play if in the mood

5:  Mediocre - take it or leave it

4:  Not so good - but could play again

3:  Bad - likely won't play this again

2:  Very bad - won't play ever again

1:  Awful - defies game description