FoxMind Games: Smart Cookies, Puzzle-Solving Brain Builder Game, 1+ Players, for Ages 6 and up

Amazing game for logic and building confidence. We start our homeschool morning every day with this and it is fun and challenging.

This is an amazing game, which starts at a more simple level and progresses to levels that might stump adults! It's well made and will serve as a teaching tool for years for children!

Great product to build confidence and critical thinking/problem solving skills.

Good thinking game for kids!

Pros: The cookie pieces are fun and have some weight so they do not easily slide off the board. The storage box holds the booklet and pieces very well. Does work on 2-D spacial processing in your head. The game starts slow giving little kids a chance to just get used to the game flow itself before ramping up. I would say the first 20 puzzles are more teaching the game than solving puzzles. The difficulty did ramp up in level 38 or so - there definitely is a feeling of getting more challenging. Around level 43 I made my first mistake in the game, but then again it was after my bedtime... basically I missed reading the last "clue." I finished all the levels in a relatively short period of time but I am an adult and this would be much harder for kids because they have to pay attention and stay focused on the clues.Cons:First, the game is more along the lines of just follow the directions and you get the right answer. The only logic I used was how to use the pieces on the board to "record" clues visually... and which clues to enact before others. The rest was literally just follow the steps.Second, you cannot assume that you solved the puzzle correctly, because its easy to overlook that you are disobeying a rule. BUT it is very very hard to check your final answers when you can see all the answers for previous and later puzzles on the same page. Even the font and icon used to display the puzzle's number was a bit difficult to determine esp when seeing at a slight distance and being so small... which means I often looked at the wrong key. Also, whether you want to or not, you will see answers to other puzzles and thus not have the full puzzle experience because now you know the answers (esp if you are a visual learner and remember what your see). The even and odd numbered keys were on separate pages so when doing the puzzles in order, you had to go to different keys. I am sure this was to limit seeing the keys for the next puzzle, but I ended up on the wrong key anyway so it really did not help me much. Plus the keys were in the back of the puzzle book, not in the instruction booklet like in Zoologic. Just having the key in a separate booklet would have allowed a parent to check the child's answers... or made it easier for the kid to check their own answers. In general, I much prefer what was done in Logik Street, where the answers were on the back of the puzzle cards. I know some kids would cheat by having the key so conveniently placed on the back of their puzzle card, but most kids are monitored by their parents / doing the puzzles with their children - so I don't feel it would be that much of an issue.Third, I really thought this game would have a feeling similar to Sudoku, but the game rules did not fit that schema at all. Instead of making sure only one of each characteristic is in each row/column... you just follow specified "clues" as to where each piece goes. So for me it did not really feel like a true logic game.Overall, Logik Street is the best logical game I found on the market for kids. But Smart Cookie is ok and more approachable for younger children than Logik Street is... but i could have lived without it.

Smart Cookies 25th Anniversary EditionMFG: Foxmind Inc.#of Players: 1Age Range: 6+Overall Construction: Smart Cookies is a puzzle game and is very simple. There is a flat board with a 3x3 grid for placement of the pieces. The game pieces themselves are just Round, Square, & Triangular rubber/plastic cookies of 3 different colors(Red/Yellow/Blue). The colors they call flavors. I love the cookies a lot because they remind me of a game I had been developing with a friend so I may use them as a stencil to physically make the pieces I need.You get a nice spiral bound puzzle book and a glossy instruction book. They are both very colorful, glossy, and full of information. Both books go into great level of detail. All of the Puzzle instructions & the main instruction book are written in 5 different languages.Gameplay: When I opened this game and started trying to play it, the game reminded me a bit of Penguins On Ice. The big difference between the 2 games is that with Penguins the pieces slide around. With Cookies you have 9 independent pieces that you place on the board.The thing is you have the puzzle book, and each section of puzzles that you get to try have different rules. All of the rules for each section are explained and there are graphics with each puzzle showing you exactly what you are supposed to do.Example: You are given a picture of the Board. To the right of the picture of the board is a picture of the Cookie you need for the puzzle. The Board will have check marks in the square that you are supposed to put the cookie in. Another section shows an X through squares, that means you cannot place your cookie into those squares. There are 8 levels of difficulty. The first section is a total of 71 puzzles. Don't worry they are easy enough.Yes/No Recommend: I would recommend this game. It is a great way to keep you or your child's mind active. I would like to see this kind of game given to people with memory issues to help build their minds back up or at least to help maintain them. I also found that it is fun for a parent to play with a child. When playing with smaller children (4 – 8) I found myself helping them to interpret the rules and sometimes I would hide a crucial piece to see if they noticed it was missing.Happy Gaming.

Even after reading the directions several times I still have no idea how to play it.

My children are 6 and 8, but they play Sudoku so they understand puzzles and logic. This is the reason I was so excited to have a chance to try the Smart Cookies game by Foxmind. Their little cocky attitudes continued as we played all the puzzles in Level 1 and 2. Once we arrived at Level 3 and I saw what they were up against, I giggled. Here comes the fun part!Opinion: In round 3, we had to put on our thinking caps. There were no more puzzle clues full of checks, letting us know the space a cookie is supposed to go into, there is only one checked box to provide a starting point. So, not only were we left to figure out where cookies go, we had to determine which shapes and colors were not allowed. This made the game challenging and fun.Note: I received a game free to test and review.