For this past week's d-Infinity Live!, Will laid out the Fixer-Upper Challenge: each of us had to pick a game we consider to be one of the worst ever and try to change it into something we would actually want to play. While there are plenty of games that I find to be tedious or poorly designed, there is almost no game I will pass up a chance to play if it means I get to spend time with other adult humans. You see, I work from home and am a stay-at-home-mom so even a lousy game is a rare chance for some social interaction. However, as a direct result of those circumstances there is one game I would be happy to never play again: 

Why Candyland Sucks

My 4 year old has been obsessed with playing Candyland multiple times a day since he got it for Christmas. I want to encourage him to enjoy games and gaming, so I can't very well say no to him when he wants to play. However, any time he asks to play I groan and die a little inside because this game is just terrible. For those of you who haven't played since you were a small child or had small children of your own, the basics of the game are that it is a race to the finish line, with each player drawing cards from a deck in turn to determine which colored space (or special candy space!) they get to move to next. That's it. That's the whole thing. You just draw cards and do what they tell you to. There's no decision making. There's no strategy. It is mind-numbingly boring. 

Another serious flaw in the design that I noticed very quickly in our play sessions is that even 3 year olds will quickly understand how the game works - and they can tell when they're going to lose. Children do need to learn to lose and lose gracefully, but if they see the loss coming a mile off (for example, if you draw the ice-cream cone candy space and are teleported to within a turn of the finish line while they are still all the way back at the start) they understandably become dispirited and disinterested in finishing the game. 

What Works in Candyland

There are a few basic things about Candlyand that really work, and I didn't want to throw them out in the redesign. Most importantly, the structure of the game (competitive, taking turns, drawing cards) contains important building blocks to actually good games that kids need to learn.  The game also helps reinforce recognizing and naming colors. And of course, the candy theme is a big part of what captures kids' imaginations and gets them interested in the game in the first place. 

My Redesign: Candy Land Express!

Taking what I thought worked and what I hated about the classic Candyland into consideration, I embarked on my redesign and after some noodling came up with the prototype for Candy Land Express! 

In Candy Land Express! rather than having a linear race track, the board is a train track with multiple stops and a central depot. The object of the game is to visit each station and collect that station's candy (based on the same candy-spaces as the classic version.) The first player with all four candies wins. Movement is still determined by the same deck of cards as classic Candyland, which includes the candy spaces, renamed "Express" cards for the purposes of this variant. Players can move in any direction as long as they land on the color or colors indicated by the card they drew. The Candy Stations and Depot are all rainbow/wildcard stations so they can be reached by any color card. Also, since the players are now train conductors, they are represented on the board by little train cars (because what preschooler doesn't love trains?!)

This redesign addresses the issues I had with the original in that now players get to actually make choices about where they are going, what order they want to collect candies in, and what path would be the best way to get there. This also gives parents the ability to softball the outcome of the game a little if they see that their kid is desperately behind and don't want to immediately crush them. In addition to retaining the game and life skills that the original teaches, this version also teaches some pattern recognition (forming the set of 4 candies.) Also, while very young children will basically go after the candies in whatever order they feel like at the time, as they get older and can think more strategically they will be able to start applying those concepts in this version of the game (deciding which candy they are more likely to reach faster with the card they drew.) 

Playtesting: The Verdict

This is all great in theory, but does my redesign of Candyland actually still appeal to preschoolers while being something adults find at least bearable to play? I introduced my homebrew to my 4 year old and.... 

...he played the freaking thing for two hours! 

The game was a hit! My son enjoyed it immensely and after the initial explanation and some simple coaching he totally understood the variant rules. I took the game to our local library as well to make sure other kids would grasp it as well. We had a 4 1/2 year old and a 6 year old join us for a round and both not only followed the rules but had a great time, too. 

As for the adults - Candy Land Express! is still a very simple game but just the addition of the tiniest bit of freewill made it approximately 8,000 times more playable. It's still not something I'm going to recommend playing over beers with my grown-up friends, but now when my kid wants to play I will happily say yes.