Jumping High Fives Candy Trains Board Game - A Sweet Sugar Coated Cooperative Train Game for Kids Ages 4 and Up - Children Learn New Skills with Tasty Track Building, Perfect for Family Play Time

I bought this game for my husband and me to play together, and for me to play solo. We're getting older, and we like simple, cooperative games. He's a model railroader, and I've been collecting Candyland versions for 60 years, so it was a good fit for us.The game involves laying tiles with different railroad configurations on them: straight tracks, curved tracks, switches with curved and straight tracks, and two crossing tracks. You use cards to either draw a tile to build track, or have a train move a certain number of spaces (tiles) along the tracks that are already there. The players are all working together to try to get all the trains from the start to the finish before the candy bandit gets to the end of his trail (basically a counter.) It's as pretty as Candyland, but has a lot more decision making.It's a nice game, with pretty art and sturdy pieces. It does seem a little pricey for what it is, though.I was originally going to knock off one star, because the rulebook (one card) has a lot of holes in it. I wrote to the company with a list of questions, and literally a few hours later they sent a detailed reply, which I'll paste below, with their permission.The most important detail: the tiles are NOT all in ONE stack as stated in the rules. There are THREE different stacks, ONE FOR EACH COLOR.Here was their reply:Thank you for getting in touch with us regarding Candy Trains Board Game. We are so happy to hear that you like the artwork and the gameplay so far!We have seen some feedback regarding the instructions being a little confusing, and we are working on updating them based on the feedback we have received to hopefully clear up any questions. For the time being, we have some answers for your questions below:Q: What is the intended number of players? The rulebook and box say 2-5 but the description on the amazon page says 1-4.A: Great question! We originally intended this to be a game for 2-5 players, but we realized that as a cooperative game it can be played solo as well. The Amazon listing should say for 1-5 players, so thank you for pointing that out, we will update the listing to reflect that.Q: If a player has a handful of cards, none of which can be played (for example, two pink track cards and 1 green track card, and the topmost tile is yellow), what should they do? Skip a turn? Or can they discard and draw a new tile? This is particularly a problem for smaller numbers of players. And especially if someone is playing solo. Unless discarding is allowed, it's possible for the game to grind to a halt because no one can use any of their cards.A: This is an error, the instructions should have said “Mix and place the tiles into 3 face-down piles, one for each color tile.”. So when setting up there should be a separate pile for each colored tile so that players never run into a problem where they can’t play a card. Alternatively, you can spread all the tiles out facedown so that you can always choose the color that you need.Q: If you have a card that says to move three spaces, but there's only room to move two spaces, can you move fewer spaces instead? (This can be a problem if your whole hand is three cards of that type.)A: Yes, you can stop moving ahead early if you need to. We will clarify this better in the movement card section of the instructions, as right now it only mentions that you can stop moving ahead when there is another train in the spot that you would be stopping.Q: Can tracks lead off the board, or must all of them be contained on the board?A: Yes, the tracks can lead off the board, but the trains will have to follow a path within the board spaces. For example, you could place one of the crossed track tiles on the edge of the board where one direction the paths is pointing outside of the board and one direction would still be leading into other spaces within the board.Q: If a tile matches a previous tile in one direction, but not in the perpendicular direction, can it still be placed? Or does it have to match in every direction, as in Carcassonne?A: Great question! Yes, as long as you are connecting to at least one of the available track directions from a previous tile, then you can connect the tile, even if it leaves a different edge of the previous tile without a connection. When placing the tiles, you always want to have the track area connecting on at least one side of a previously placed tile.Q: On the tile that looks like a hashtag, can the train turn a corner, or must it go straight through? (My husband is a model railroader, so based on my experience, I thought you had to go straight through, but to my surprise he wanted to turn the corner on that tile.)A: Another great question! We totally understand what you mean, coming from experience with model trains, in reality a train wouldn’t be able to make a sharp turn like that, however players can make that turn in the game. Given the size limitation in the board we needed to have a tile that could allow players to change the direction of the path quickly, even if it is a little imaginative.Q: On the tile that looks like a switch, with a straight track and a curved track, are we to assume that the train could either go straight or follow the curve, despite the fact that the rails are shown only following the curve? Also, based on my model train experience, I assume that a train could not make a sharp turn there, but that too is not explained in the rules, so I'm not sure.A: Yes, players can choose to either go straight or make the turn. The rails only following one direction were just the artistic choice of our illustrator, but players can add connecting tiles to either edge of the tile and can follow either direction with the train tokens once the path has been laid out.Thank you for the really great questions! As mentioned, we are working to update these instructions and will hopefully be able to add an updated image or PDF to our website soon to help clarify these questions. Please let me know if you have any further questions (or suggestions!) or if any of the answers were unclear.Sincerely,The Jumping High Five TeamEdit: After receiving those answers, I realized that it's impossible to get all five trains to the station because there aren't enough distance cards. When I wrote to them, they thanked me and said they're going to add more cards to future printings. In the meantime, if you want to be able to win with all five trains, you have to start on the first tile and end on the last tile. Don't use a distance move to get to the first tile or get off the last tile. Or just play with four trains.

My hubby set the game up to play with the grandkids. The instructions were not the clear. We made up our own rules. All that matters is the grandkids had fun.

Great game! My grandson loves it

I agree with everyone that the instructions are hard to follow but with that being said we had fun making our own rules. I tried emailing this company but they have not replied to us. My obsessed train son loves this game we just wish there were more train track pieces as we always run out of the gummy bear track pieces

My five-year-old loves this game. He laughed every time one of us drew a candy bandit card, and he didn't even care that we lost the first time playing. It is an easy to understand, fun game.I contacted the manufacturer with some questions about the updated rules, and they were incredibly responsive and sent out what I needed right away. They were so nice and helpful!

Looks fun, grandkids are going to love it !

My five year old really likes this game. He asks to play it, and it’s pretty fun. The board is really fun and vibrant. We love to discuss what’s going on in the background. But, it’s the gameplay really requires the addition of some of your own rules. The instructions are pretty vague, though quite simple. But it means you have to play a couple times to work out the bugs and establish house rules. We also found ourselves recycling the singular reverse bandit card otherwise the game often ends very quickly. Much too quickly to build the tracks. I get that it’s a race with the bandit but when you consistently can’t finish building, it’s no fun. Also, if you attempt to build more than one track, to facilitate more movement, you risk running out of track cards. There are a lot of times you can’t take your turn at all because there are so many movement cards but track building is slow. We recycle cards and came up with a swap system. With so many adjustments needed, it’s not as good as it could easily be. On top of that, the price is absolute nuts for a kids game, especially one that is kind of incomplete. It’s really fun, and encourages problem solving for small kids but it’s not worth the price at all.

Game for the whole family. Lots of laughs. My grandchildren loved it. Co-op promotes teamwork.