Sinterklaas has arrived in the country
Give a game as a gift!
Educational adventures by the chimney
Sinterklaas is back in the country, and that means: presents! While children's wish lists are filled with the latest gadgets and traditional toys, we at Jumping Turtle Games would like to invite you to go a step further this year.
What could be better than a gift that not only brings joy, but also stimulates your child's development? Our collection of board and card games is the perfect alternative!
Do you want some gift ideas? Scroll down!
Why our games are a great choice
In our children's games, we always try to ensure that several educational goals are met through play. In summary, our games are:
- Intelligent fun: Children (and adults!) learn through play. From mastering complex rules to planning the next move, games strengthen strategic thinking, problem-solving skills, and concentration.
- Social skills: Playing together is learning together. Our games promote crucial social skills, such as taking turns, waiting patiently, dealing with winning and losing, and clear communication.
- Screen-free: In an era of digital distractions, board and card games offer a much-needed, tangible, and personal interaction. They create quality family moments around the table.
This year, Sinterklaas won't just fill shoes with something fun, but also with something valuable and sustainable.
Some gift ideas
Up to 6 years
Hedgehog Prick (Egeltje Prikje) is a game for ages 4 and up. You can play it against each other or as a team. When it's your turn, you roll the little hedgehog over the forest fruits, which stick to your hedgehog with Velcro. With the collected forest fruits, you can then move along the path. If you are playing against each other, you want to complete the customizable course as quickly as possible. If you play cooperatively, you want to arrive as a team with your hedgehog before the fox catches you.
The game stimulates insight, planning, and motor skills.
No, Flip-A-Zoo is not a memory game as it might look from the setup. It is a push-your-luck game where you are allowed to keep flipping tiles, but unlike memory, you don't want two of the same tiles. As soon as this happens, your turn is over, you flip all tiles back facedown (allowing other players to remember what lies there), and you collect no points! You must therefore assess the risk and stop in time. If you do so, you can collect all the flipped tiles and score 1 point per tile. You can play this version from 3 to 4 years old, and these are all the rules.
However, the game grows with your children, because once they have mastered the game, you can add the next rule: if you flip the same color 3 times, you must also stop, and your turn ends without scoring points. Afterward, you can also add the mischievous monkeys that guard tiles for you, or the point variant where you score 1 point for 1 animal of the same species, 5 points for 2 animals of the same species, and no points if you have collected all 3 animals of the same species. This keeps the game interesting for older children as well.
Flip-A-Zoo trains risk assessment, memory, and strategic thinking.
Drago-Tuku is a cooperative game in which players must collect the puzzle pieces that form the castle together. However, the dragons are coming down from their mountain and will try to block the path. If a dragon catches you, you flee to the forest and must wait there until you roll a sun.
With a sun, you can escape the forest, but if you are simply walking along the path, you can also choose to move 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 steps. This is ideal for avoiding the dragons on the path. But you can also share your sun with other players. If you want to win the game, you will therefore regularly have to give up your turn when you roll a sun to another player who can use it better than yourself. An ideal lesson for children to learn how to work together.
Drago-Tuku trains teamwork, sharing, and concentration.
From 6 years old
In Nessie, you go in search of the Loch Ness monster. You move your diver across the board and lift a dive spot to see what is underneath. If you see a piece of the monster, you take a photo of the part you have seen. Then you push aside everything you have found (causing the pieces to move under the surface during the game), and it is the next player's turn. Who will succeed first in finding all parts of the monster to complete the full photo?
To keep the game challenging, variants have also been added that give you extra options if you encounter other sea creatures on your discovery journey.
Nessie trains motor skills, planning, and concentration.
With CoraQuest, you experience your first cooperative dungeon crawler adventure. Each player chooses a hero and takes on the goblins, spiders, and other horrific creatures and monsters you encounter on your adventures. Battles are settled simply with dice rolls, and special abilities and items make the game truly engaging.
The game also includes the quest book, which contains several quests with different stories and goals. So, get ready for the most exciting adventures.
CoraQuest trains imagination, planning, and teamwork.
Cheeky Monkey is playable from age 6, but we certainly don't call it a "kids' game." Parents will also get a lot of enjoyment out of this. It is a push-your-luck game with a mean streak in which you are allowed to keep pulling animal tiles out of the bag during your turn. However, as soon as you pull the same tile twice, you must stop and put everything back in the bag. If you decide to stop, you may place all the tiles you have pulled in a pile in front of you in any order you choose.
Keep in mind, however, that if someone pulls an animal tile that is on top of your point pile, they are allowed to steal it! And if you pull a monkey, you can swap it for a tile you see lying on top of someone else's point pile.
Cheeky Monkey trains risk assessment, dealing with setbacks, and concentration.
8 years and older
PixBlocks is our educational top choice. It teaches you the basics of programming. The game contains 56 tasks in 3 difficulty levels. First, you set up the task, and then the task determines which pieces you still need to position yourself. The goal is to place them so that when your bunny follows the PixBlocks rules (simple rules such as gravity), it will eat all the carrots.
The game contains a solo version with tasks to perform, and you can also play this version in a group where you consult together. You can also play the game against each other, where you build a world and players take turns placing their bunny and the carrots with the intention of having their bunny eat the most carrots of all.
The great advantage of training these skills in physical game form rather than with an app is that the learning is much more lasting. In an app, you reset the world and try again. Thinking ahead is therefore not that important, and you mainly solve the task through trial and error. In PixBlocks, you must think before you try something because afterward you have to reset everything yourself. Learning through play is therefore 100% active with PixBlocks.
PixBlocks teaches programming skills, spatial reasoning, and abstract thinking.
In the wacky Wurst Case Scenario, you are secretly assigned 1 or 2 sausages (depending on the number of players) that are all on the conveyor belt heading toward the meat processor. When it's your turn, you play an action card with which you usually manipulate the position of the sausages on the belt. Once all players have played a card, the belt is activated, and all sausages move 1 position in the direction of the terrible meat processor. If a sausage falls into the meat processor, it is out of the game, but its owner does not reveal themselves and simply continues to play (we will explain further on why that can still be fun).
With some cards, you can also perform special actions such as unplugging the machine so the belt doesn't move for a while, or sticking sausages to the belt with jam.
Ultimately, you want your sausage to be the only one left on the belt, because the game stops as soon as only one sausage is left on the belt. This is then the grand winner of the game! However, it is also possible that the last sausages all fall into the meat processor together. If this happens, it is the Wurst Case Scenario, and there is no winner. All players whose sausages are out of the game will therefore try to trigger the Wurst Case Scenario from that moment on.
Wurst Case Scenario teaches planning, bluffing, and exercises your laughing muscles.
Wurst Case Scenario in the webshop
In Dream Cruise (Droomcruise), you are the captain of your own ship. You are constantly getting 3 families on your boat with specific wishes, and you must fully satisfy these, because only after their wishes are fulfilled will they leave your ship and can you receive new guests. Every family you manage to satisfy earns you points at the end of the game. You can also score extra points based on the locations you have visited.
Each turn, you choose where you will sail or whether you will stay at sea for a day and organize your own activities. Furthermore, you can also build out the facilities on your ship so that guests can satisfy their wishes there as well. And as captain, you naturally play an important role too. If there are guests' wishes that you cannot get fulfilled immediately, let them spend a day with the captain. Everyone gets happy from that!
Droomcruise is a simple family game that children can easily join in on. The funny texts on the family cards and the recognizable activities all contribute to the pleasant atmosphere. Almost as good as a real dream cruise!
Droomcruise teaches planning, strategic insight, and concentration.