Board Games make the best gifts as they bring family together.Welcome to “Connect the Thoughts” a fun new matching game from Amigo Games, which hones children’s visual recognition skills. The concept of the game is really quite simple.
The game comes with:
To set up the game, scatter the 80 cards in the deck face down on the table. Place the bell within reach of all players. We chose to have a pick up pile and a discard pile as in the game of crazy eights as we were playing with two players.
PLAYING THE GAME
Have the youngest player ring the bell to start the game. Everyone plays at once and picks up a card. You place the first card you see face up to start a row in front of you. All players continue to pick up cards looking for pictures that match one or more of the pictures on your face up card. If the card does not match flip the card back over face down and place it with the rest of the cards. This is where we placed the card in the discard pile.
The first player to build a row with five cards rings the bell and play pauses. If that players cards all match, then they pick up their cards and place them off to the side to form a stack. The rest of the players place their cards back with the face down cards. If the player has a mismatch after ringing the bell, that player sits out the round until another player creates a row.
WINNING THE GAME
The game ends when there are no more face-down cards. The player with the longest correct row at that moment puts these cards into his/her stack. The player with the most cards in his/herstack wins the game.
Connect the Thoughts Make Connections.
In addition to making matches, players can play “Connect the Thoughts” by making connections between the pictures on the cards. For example, you could place a card with the dog on it next to a card with the donkey on it because they are both animals. Players may only use a connection once per row.
For example, if you connect the pencil and the penguin because they’re both starts with “p” then you cannot make another connection based on letters of the alphabet (or color) during the current round. When a player rings the bell when playing with connections, that player must remember the connections between the pictures and explain them aloud after ringing the bell. This version of the game would be best suited for older children.
The game takes about 15 min to play and I have to admit that it is a lot off fun for adults as well as children. Two levels of play extend the age range of the game. “Connect the Thoughts” by making connections is a great game for younger children learning their colors as well as letter knowledge.
Overall, this is a fun education game that will greatly help children improve their memory skills, and it is the ultimate travel game.
Founded in 1980, Amigo Games is a German game manufacturer, focusing on childrens, family, strategy, and card games. The company is known for producing games that feature high quality components, excellent game play, and themes that resonate with consumers all at a fair price. Amigo’s games are sold in 38 countries worldwide.