We have a 5-year-old daughter with whom we love to spend as much time as possible. She is a normal child, with temper and whims of a 5-year-old kid. Everything is perfect, except one thing, eating vegetables and fruits. She has a few preferences, like carrots, apples, strawberries, oranges and pears. Except those, she would not eat any raw fruits or vegetables.
As we play a lot of board games with her, me and my husband came with an idea to create a game board to encourage her to eat a larger variety of fruits and veggies. After months of brainstorming, designing andtesting, it was ready. A couple of weeks ago we played the game withher,andshe was thrilled. Now, she wants to play it every day, andwe do. I amdelighted to see her laugh, having agood time with us and nibbling on fresh fruits and veggies.
The game is likeHasbro’s “Candy Land”.A gameboard, different color pawns,a dice and a deck of cards. Each card contains a different fruit or vegetable. As you roll the dice and move the pawn on the gameboard, when landing on some special squares, in orderto get specific advantages, theplayer has to pick a cardand eat a slice of the fruit or vegetable, specified on the card. There are a lot of interesting elementsin the game, like: traps, shortcuts, movement actions, etc, and most of them requires the player to pick one or more cards from the deck and eat what’s specified there.
We called the game NOONION, and that’s another fun element. Some cards from the deck containonions, so whenpicked, the player has to eat a slice of onion. Sometimes, we replace the onion with fresh gingerslices, bitter melon, orcranberries. Something very healthy, but not so tasty to eat. We like to think that's also a little educational, as in life, taking a shortcut has its risks and disadvantages.
In total, there are 80 cards printed, 3 cards copies with the most common 15 fruits and 10 veggies + 5 onion cards. Beforeplaying, I looktrough thefridgewhatfruits or vegetables we have, slice themand put them in a large bowl. We sort out the cards to containonlythose types of food, and we play. Usually, one game roundlasts25-30 minutes.
Long story short. After we played the game with somefriends and their kids, they liked so muchthat theyasked us to make a game copy for them. Also, they suggested that a lotof other parents wouldbeinterested in our game and we should try to make a commercial version. My husband is eager to do it, but I am a little skeptical about this and I would like more opinions from other parents. Would you playthis game with your kid? If not, why?
I highly appreciate any feedback and suggestions. Thank you!
With love, Jenna.