Publisher: Larva Games
Age: 6+
Players: 2-5
Game Length: 15-30 minutes
MSRP: $29.99
Even hardcore “gamer’s game” tabletop publishers like Petersen Games see the value in exploring the lucrative market of kid-friendly games. The Tooth Fairy Game is their first release under their new Larva Games imprint. It packs four different kid-focused games into one box, along with over 100 colorful plastic teeth.
The teeth and bag components are delightful, and the four games increase in complexity to allow for a wider range of age and skill, though we found them all underwhelming.
The Tooth Hurts
The first game, That’s My Tooth, simply asks each player to pull teeth from their bag in the hopes of getting five of their color first. There’s zero strategy (like the card game War) but easy to play with much younger kids. Pulling Teeth is almost the same game but with multiple bags to choose from, and a die roll for the number. These games provide the barest of introductions to set collection, but younger kids will get a kick out of collecting small plastic teeth.
Lie Through Your Teeth is when things get a bit more interesting. It’s basically Liar’s Dice but using numbers and colors of teeth. Players start with a random assortment of teeth in their bag, then bluff on how many and what kind of teeth everyone has collectively.
Unlike Liar’s Dice, winners gain teeth when they win (rather than losers losing dice), giving the winners of each round more and more information. This makes it harder for other players to catch up and can quickly become frustrating. Bluffing is a hard enough concept for children to grasp without piling on the challenge of a runaway leader.
Finally there’s Treasure Teeth, which is a secret bidding game using teeth as currency. A roll of a dice determines the max bid, up to double the roll. Everyone divides their teeth into two hands in the hope of getting their biggest bid randomly selected in a winner-take-all. There’s a bit of strategy with how much to bid, and the risk and reward in dividing the teeth.
Treasure Teeth is a noble attempt to simplify poker-style treasure pots and antes into a game for younger kids, but, like the Liar’s Dice-inspired Treasure Teeth, is also not a genre that lends itself to being kid-friendly in the first place.
The Rating
The Tooth Fairy Game has an age recommendation of 6+. The four included games gradually scale in complexity, allowing for even younger kids to play the easier games, which amount to little more than pulling colorful teeth from bags.
The Takeaway
While I love the the huge amount of colorful teeth and cloth bags, none of the four games do anything meaningful with the theme. The teeth could just as easily be anything else, like buttons, cubes, or coins.
Including four games of increasing complexity is a brilliant method of producing a kids game, allowing one game box to grow along with the kids. But introducing two very kid-unfriendly genres, bluffing and betting, results in dissatisfying half-measures.
Find The Tooth Fairy Game at Petersen Games Website.
