Continent Race by Byron's Games Review

{Disclaimer:  I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review.  I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.}



You know that we love games!  When we were given the opportunity to review Continent Race from Byron's Games we jumped on it.  This game is for 2+ players ages 7 and up.

 Our New Game

Inside our game

The game comes with 1 world map, 5 continent lists with maps, 205 country cards and 3 wild Antarctica cards.  Let me explain really quick that there are 5 continent lists because North America and South America are grouped together as The Americas and Antarctica is used only as wild cards.

 The World Map

 The 5 Continent Lists

The back of the 5 continent lists has the maps

The object of the game is simple - collect the required number of country cards for each continent.  The first person to do this wins.  Africa, Asia, The Americas and Europe require 4 country cards while you only need 2 country cards for Australia/Oceania.  There are 2 levels of play for this game - basic and advanced.  In basic level play, you only need to collect the required number of country cards for 3 continents.  In advanced play, you have to collect the required number of country cards for 5 continents.

 Country Cards

You may notice that the cards are color-coded (the Europe cards are blue, Africa cards are yellow, The Americas are red, etc.).  This is to help kids catch on quickly and easily!  Also, the cards feature the country name, capital, and national flag.

Mystery Cards

In basic play, you also remove all the orange mystery cards from the deck (seen above).  Unlike the country cards, these cards are purposely not color coded for more advanced play.  Players must figure out what continent these cards belong to and use them to complete their needed continent groups.  In basic play, you also ignore the optional challenge symbol found on some of the cards (seen below). 

Challenge Cards are pictured above.

For advanced play if a player draws a card with the challenge symbol on it, they have the option to challenge one other player to see which one of them can name the most countries from that specific continent.  Each person gets 15 seconds to look over the Continent List/Map and then from memory they must take turns naming as many countries as they can going back and forth until someone gets stumped. The winner of the challenge gets to draw 3 additional cards, which is a huge benefit.  They choose the most useful 7 of their cards and discard the remaining 3 so they continue to have only 7 cards in their hand.

To begin play, everyone is dealt 7 cards.  It is important to note that throughout the game, everyone needs to maintain 7 cards in their hand - no more and no less.  As in most card games, play begins to the dealers left.  During a turn, a player will draw 1 card from the draw pile and discard a card face up, this becomes the discard pile.  Every time a player discards a card they must announce the country name and continent of the discarded card (this really helps learn proper pronunciation and helps promote learning).  The next player then has a choice to draw from the draw pile or choose the previously discarded card.  Players can only choose the card from the discarded pile if they can use it immediately to complete a continent group.  There are 3 Antarctica cards which are wild cards.

Above you can see how wild cards can be used.

A player can use a wild Antarctica card as an entire continent group, or it can be used as a wild card within a continent group.  There are benefits to both uses.  When a player has collected the required number of country cards for a continent, they will place their cards face up on the table and announce the names of the countries within their continent group.  They then draw the amount of cards needed to restore their hand to the required 7 cards and play passes to the next player.  That's it!

Playing Continent Race

C checking out all the countries in Europe.

Playing with David

B was finally able to play!

This game may sound complicated but it really isn't and it's really enjoyable to play.  I love that it helps kids learn or refresh their geography skills and gets them thinking about the world in which we live.  We are really enjoying this addition to our homeschool and game shelf!

I also want to mention that this game was created by a 6 year old kid, Byron, during a month long hospital stay.  I love that he was able to use his ideas and creativity to come up with this game during a difficult time in his life - what a treasure.  Byron's game came to life in December 2018.  A portion of the profits benefit select children's charities, which is super cool.

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