Kayanak

Kayanak is possibly the best kid game ever.

Or at least that's what I think today -- and for the past year or so. It's possible something better will come along -- but for now, Kayanak is my favorite.

Sadly, Kayanak is out of print… which I know makes some of you a bit testy. Sorry about that -- but I think two of the best race games on the planet are Entenrallye and Um Reifenbreite… and both of them are out of print as well.

But why do I like Kayanak so much? In the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "let me count the ways."

1. The theme (ice-fishing) and the mechanics (using a wooden stick to poke holes in the [paper] ice and fishing out small metal balls with a magnet) work together perfectly.

2. The components are, as is typical for Haba games, top-notch. In this case, they not only look good but are extremely functional.

3. The game plays well with two, three or four players... and with children as young as four and adults as old as dirt.

4. It's freakishly fun -- I mean, seriously -- you get to poke holes in paper (what kid hasn't spent most of a slow school morning doing that?!), play with magnets, and pretend to be an Inuit out on a frozen lake. (OK, I have no desire to actually be on a frozen lake, but the pretending part is fun.)

The gameplay is dice-activated: what you roll tell you what you can do (cut holes, fish, move or a combination of things) as well as how many times you can do them. The dice also give you opportunities to ice over other players' fishing holes and "melt" portions of the board (making them impassable).

There's a lot of ways to play tactically -- and yet, part of the charm of the game is that the fish (little metal balls in two sizes: regular and "fish story") sometimes clump together to make an amazing haul... and sometimes you fish in an area that is, sadly, fishless. (Is "fishless" a word? I'm not sure that I care.)

I never refuse to play Kayanak with my boys... or at game conventions... or wherever. And that's why it's my pick as the #1 children's game.

Kayanak is for 2 to 4 players, ages 6 and up. It was designed by Peter-Paul Joopen and published by Haba.