Blue Orange Games Dr. Microbe

I'm definitely part of that group of parents who seem to constantly be trying to get their children to unplug, its hard when sometimes, even at school, they're in front of a screen multiple times throughout the day. To combat this, my husband and I decided to buy a lot of fun games and start a weekly family game night. The only rules being that it had to be a board game, and everyone had to agree to play the one chosen. We've been lucky to have assembled quite the collection of classics, but its the Blue Orange games that are constantly crossing our table. Our Blue Orange games have been acquired either by them being given as a gift, us buying them ourselves, or sometimes even more exciting, as a review. On of my sons favorite things to do is try out a game and tell all of their friends about it the next day at school. We were asked to check out Dr. Microbe in time for Christmas and I think we all had fun giving this one a game night test run.

Dr. Microbe is a logic race game, the box design is colorful and draws your eye, not to mention the little window in the front that gives you a peek at all of the microbes. The back of the box has the following description: "Help Dr. Microbe complete her research! Sort the microbes into your petri dish using your tweezers, and a bit of logic. Work fast to figure out the missing microbes and superbugs and snatch them up before your opponents do. Be the fastest scientist in the lab to win!"~ The game comes with: 49 microbes, 5 petri dishes, 4 lab tweezers, 54 challenge cards, and an illustrated rules book. The game is for ages 8 and up, and for 2-4 players. Once all of your game pieces are set up, you choose a challenge card and everyone races to place the microbes into their petri dish so that it matches the challenge card. once you do that you must find the superbug and complete the empty spot in the petri dish. You have to be quick though because everyone else is doing the same thing! 

 

 

Your superbug must be a different shape and color than the microbes.  My youngest son is 7 and had a little trouble understanding the game, I related the idea of the game to him as a "missing addend" sort of puzzle, he is learning about them in school and the connection seemed to work enough that he was able to keep up during the game, enough to have fun and even win once! Much like bacteria and microbes, Dr. Microbe has variants, or other ways to play the game. These variants make the game a little harder, and especially for older and more experienced scientists, more fun. One of the variants lets you sabotage the other players petri dishes by placing a virus piece in the dish with their microbes. The other player must then remove, or pass the virus to another petri dish before continuing. After completing 5 cards correctly, you've won the game! The typical game time is around 15 minutes, and the 5 rounds can move pretty fast depending on the speed and quick thinking of your players.

As my kids have grown I've learned that the more fast aced games are the ones that hold their attention and the ones that they are always asking to play. I like when the games also test their brains and really make them think, Blue Orange games never misses the mark when it comes to the proper game for an age group, and what's even better is that they have games for all age groups and learning levels.
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