My First Stone Age: The Card Game Kids Table

The Kids Table series from Purple Phoenix Games seeks to lightly explore games that are focused toward children and families. We will do our best to give some good insight, but not bog you down with a million rules…

My First Stone Age: The Card Game (that’s a mouthful) is a quick and easy card game that can be played by any child of any age assuming they have the attention span for it (mine didn’t the first couple times). It focuses on memory skills and set collection mechanics.

Setting up is easy. Shuffle the Hut Cards and give each player one. Shuffle the Goods Cards and deal nine face-down in a circle. Place the rest of the deck in the middle of the circle face-up. Plop Martin, the mammeeple (mammoth meeple) on or near one of the face-down cards and you’re ready to play!

The winner of the game is they who is able to build three huts first. Players can build huts by moving Martin around the circle clock-wise 1-4 spaces, collecting the card if it matches the players’ hut card, and then building the hut by discarding the goods used. Each turn players will be able to move Martin, flip a card to see if it matched their hut card, and build a hut. The game continues in this fashion until the winner has built their third hut!

This is a very light game that has very simple rules, and not a ton for the players to have to keep track of or remember. Perfect for young ones and not-so-young ones alike. We love the artwork on the cards and being able to move a large mammeeple around the table searching for fish or arrowheads. While the game is competitive in that there is a winner and therefore also losers, we mitigate that by saying that, “if I win then you get to tickle me, but if you win I get to tickle you!” That usually quells any upset youngsters pretty quickly.

We love this game and it is a great first step into gateway games that target older audiences. It is simple and quick, and a minimal investment for a good few minutes!