Smart Games Cat & Mouse Review

If you read my blog then you know that we absolutely love Smart Games.  I have another one to share with you today from Timberdoodle, Cat & Mouse!  It is a single player game geared for children in 1st grade and beyond.

What's included?  This game includes a game board, 9 plastic maze tiles, and a challenge and solutions booklet.  There are 48 challenges that increase in difficulty from Starter, Junior, Expert and Master.

I love that everything stores inside the game board!

Here is a closer view of the maze tiles.

How to play?  First a player chooses a challenge from the booklet.  The challenge will show them which connections they need to make (or not make) to complete or solve the puzzle.  Next, they need to arrange the tiles on the game board that makes the proper connections without creating dead ends.  There are many different solutions for each of these challenges which is unique for Smart Games (they usually have a unique solution per challenge).  A few of the solutions are given in the challenge booklet on the reverse side of each challenge but there are a variety of ways to solve these puzzles.

Challenge 1, Starter Level

 The white cat must be able to get to the gray mouse, that's it!  And remember, no dead ends.

 

Some of the solutions for Challenge 1

F working on Challenge 1

Here is one of our solutions!

 

E with one of her solutions!

E's solution for Challenge 10!

Gray mouse needs to get to the cheese and the white mouse needs to get to the trash can.

Challenge 31, Expert Level

 

In this challenge the gray mouse needs to get to the trash can, the dark brown dog needs to get to the bone/white cat/cheese but can't get to the trash can and the light brown dog needs to get to the dog house and the tree.  You can see that this challenge is a lot more complicated.

Here are two solution ideas.

Cat & Mouse encourages strategic planning, concentration, problem solving, visual and spatial insight and logical thinking.  This game is currently included in Timberdoodle's 1st grade curriculum kit and we highly recommend it!

Disclosure:  Huge shout out to Timberdoodle for selecting me as a Timberdoodle Blogger.  I received Cat & Mouse in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions are my own.