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Candy Land
A fun and easy game played by children.
Candy Land is a simple board game that requires no ability to read or count. It has become something of a cultural icon in the U.S., where it is often the first board game played by children.
Game play
The board consists of a winding, linear track made of about 140 spaces, most of which are one of the six rainbow colors. The remaining few spaces are named locations such as Peppermint Stick Forest and Gum Drop Mountain, or characters like Queen Frostine and Lord Licorice.
Players take turns removing the top card from a randomized stack, most of which show one of the six colors, and then moving their marker ahead to the next space of that color. Some cards have two marks of a color, in which case the player moves his or her marker ahead to the second-next space of that color. The last space of the (modern) track is rainbow-striped, so that one doesn't have to draw a specific color to reach the end. Also, the deck contains one card for each named space, and drawing such a card moves a player directly to that space, either forward or backward (backward moves are possible only in the classic game, they are ignored in the modern game). Finally, there are three colored squares marked with a dot. A player that lands on such a square is stuck (all cards are ignored) until a card is drawn of the same color as the square.
The race is straightforward, woven around a simple story line about finding a lost king of candy land. The classic game takes longer to complete than one would expect, because the location cards can send players backwards. Adults may find they are losing patience the second or third time through the deck, but young children seem to have an endless fascination for the game, and a surprising endurance to play to the finish.
Versions of Candy Land
At least three different versions of the Candyland board game were made. A picture from the Elliott Avedon Museum, copyright 1962, shows a track layout different from the more modern versions. The next revision, from the 1980s and 1990s, has the modern track layout, and ends with a purple square. The rules specify that any card that would cause you to advance past the purple square wins the game, but many people play you must land exactly on it. In the most modern version, there is a rainbow-striped square at the end to make the rule visually explicit. The rules for the modern game also specify that a character card resulting in a backward move should be ignored, resulting in a much shorter game. Finally, some of the characters are renamed in the modern version - Queen Frostine is Princess Frostine, for example.
Additionally, a VCR board game version of the game was made in 1986, although distribution of the game appears to have been limited. An animated 2005 feature Candy Land: The Great Lollipop Adventure was produced and later spawned a DVD game version of Candy Land.
Source: Wikipedia
Flags: Very Short (0-60 mins), With a Friend, With a Group, Children, Indoors, At Home, Morning, Day, Night, Sunny, Snowy, Rainy