I now have a five-year-old kid which is odd to say. But he sees that I have board games and he wants to play some games himself. Instead of going with the classic Candy Land, which he does play with Grandparents, I bought him some Haba games. And these aren’t all of them that he has, but recently, there are three that we play. What are the games and are they a good game for kids that isn’t purely luck like a Candy Land or Snakes and Ladders? And which is my favorite of Moonlight Castle, Monza, and Dragon’s Breath: The Hatchling?

Moonlight Castle

We’ll start with Moonlight Castle, this is a gem collection game that is not the simplest on the list. You are trying to collect the most gems coming out of the Moonlight Castle. But to do that, you need to have the right amount of matching pebbles to be able to grab the gems. So if I want to get a 3 gem tile of green, I need three green pebbles.

To go on top of that, you need to collect the pebbles and figure out what locations to go to on the board in order to get the gems you want. The locations you can go give you between 0 and 3 new pebbles. So there is strategy as to where you go there. And then when you go to a spot, it is going to cost you pebbles. So you need to plan to have enough pebbles to get to a spot and to get the gems.

This game has nice toy factor to it. The tiles with the gems slide out from under the castle in a cool way. And the game itself flows nicely once you get started. I like how you need to plan ahead. You can’t just go to a spot and hope you have enough pebbles. That is something that a kid will need to learn as they play, but a good thing to learn.

Grade For Kids: B-

Monza

Monza is a theme that my kid loves, it’s about car racing. He is a fan of cars and of racing to do stuff. In Monza it is a race to see who can make it to the end.

This is a die rolling game. You grab all of the dice and roll them, they are going to land on different colored sides. And that will determine where you can move on the board as the spots to move up have different colors. So you need to plan and allocate your dice so that you move as far as you can.

Monza is a simpler game than Moonlight Castle, but in a good way. It still requires some strategic planning as you figure out where you move. As we’ve played, it is no longer a game for my kid of moving to his favorite colors if he can. But how can he use the dice to move as far as he can along the track. It makes you plan strategically in how you allocate the dice and plan out your turn.

Grade for Kids: B+

Dragon’s Breath: The Hatchling

The final one is Dragon’s Breath: The Hatchling. This is a gem collection game and really contract fulfillment in a lot of ways. But the mechanisms are different and fun which I enjoy about the game.

Each player takes a turn as the “fire breather”. You remove a ring from a stack of cool looking plastic gems. The gems fall off and then everyone collects them. The non-fire breather players add gems to cards in front of them to get points by collecting sets. The fire breather tries and stop them. As you complete your sets you get new cards. And once all the gems are collected a new ring is lifted off causing more gems to fall. At the end of the game it is the player who has the most points on completed cards who wins the game.

I like this game a lot because the kid was taught it and is no able to teach it. The rules are simple but it again gives them some simple strategy. How do I pick gems that are most likely to help me complete cards. Or as the fire breather, how do I block others from completing cards. It is a strategy that my kid already sees in the game which is fun.

Grade For Kids: B+

Final Thoughts on Moonlight Castle, Monza, and Dragon’s Breath: The Hatchling

These are kids games, I’m not going to pretend that they aren’t. That means that for an adult, it is not always going to be fun to play them over and over and over. However, as I said in the beginning, compared to something like Candy Land there is a lot of fun in these games. And the fact that my kid can teach two of them, Monza and Dragon’s Breath: The Hatchling, it is very cool to see.

I obviously love board games. And I like to see him take an interest in board games. It is a hobby that we can share and there are many more that we already to spend time with. But to see him have an interest in it is fun, and dangerous. Dangerous only because now I am interested in getting more games. But also with the handful of games that he has, it’s now a chance for him to really learn those games which I want to encourage as well. And also encourage to not overwhelm him with new games.

Which of these three games looks the best to you?

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