Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Timberdoodle's Asteroid Escape Smart Game Review

Our Asteroid Escape

You hear me say this a lot, we love space!  I have another Timberdoodle game to share with you, the Asteroid Escape Smart Game.  Think of this as a Sci-Fi equivalent for a car chase.

If you read our recent review, this is similar to Brain Fitness Solitaire Chess in that it is a single-player game and is geared for ages 8 to adult.  Yes, I can play too!  It also comes with a challenge and solutions book.

Game Board - 7 puzzle pieces with asteroids and 1 puzzle piece with the spaceship

The goal of Asteroid Escape is to navigate your spaceship through the asteroid field and through the exit or in other words, slide the puzzle pieces around until you can slide the spaceship off of the game board.  You select a challenge and set up the puzzle pieces as indicated.

Ground Rules:
  •  All puzzle pieces must remain horizontal.
  •  Tilting or lifting puzzle pieces is not allowed.
  •  While asteroids can overlap empty parts of other puzzle pieces or the border of the game board, they can never overlap other asteroids.
  •  Likewise, the spaceship can overlap empty parts of the puzzle pieces or the border of the game board but it may not overlap asteroids.
  •  Only the spaceship may slide off the game board.
Setting up a challenge

 Moving the pieces

Winning the challenge


The pieces slide easily...

 Unless you are trying to make an illegal move.  The spaceship cannot come off the game board in the above photo because it bumps the asteroid next to it so this move is not legal.

There are 60 challenges with five different levels to choose from:  Starter, Junior, Expert, Master and Wizard.  If you get stuck, the challenge booklet contains the shortest solutions for each challenge.  Now, this might look super easy.  The very first challenge requires only 6 moves to win the game.  But I want you to know that the last challenge requires 109 moves to complete!  Wowza.  There is definitely planning and strategic problem solving involved in this game.  My family enjoys it.

Here you can see the game board with its lid on top.

I love that it comes with a lid making storage for everything a breeze.  This also makes it more portable so it's easy to carry along in the car and such.

I was not familiar with Smart Games before the beginning of this school year.  A received Anti-Virus Mutation as part of her Timberdoodle 9th Grade Curriculum kit (review coming soon!) and now we own Asteroid Escape as well.  Smart Games encourage planning, problem solving, spatial insight and flexible thinking.  They are both great additions to our homeschool.

You can see Asteroid Escape circled in red in the bottom left corner.

Asteroid Escape Smart Game is a part of Timberdoodle's 8th Grade Curriculum Kit.  This would be a great addition to your own homeschool resources, games and would even make a fun unique gift for that hard to find child.  And at under $15, it's a great price.

Disclosure:  Huge shout out to Timberdoodle for selecting me as a Timberdoodle Blogger.  Timberdoodle sent my family the Asteroid Escape Smart Game for a discounted price in exchange for our honest review.  All opinions are my own.

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