Rumpel Ritter (Knuckling Knights)
- designer: Gunter & Benjamin Burkhardt
- publisher: Haba
- date: 2004
- BoardGameGeek rank/rating: 3467/5.6
- age: 4+
- # of players: 2-4
- print status: in print
- cost: $13.50 (TimeWellSpent.org)
Take one cardboard dice tower-like castle with a cardboard drawbridge (door)... add lots of little knights (pawns)... roll the dice & let the knights fall out onto a landscape with holes in it - and there you have Rumpel Ritter. If your child can count to three, they can play.
And while that may not sound like much, it's a lot of fun to play.
Sometimes, people argue that Candyland or Chutes & Ladders are good game for kids (shudder!) because they teach them basic skills: matching, taking turns, etc. Rumpel Ritter is proof positive that you can do those things (teach counting, taking turns, etc.) in a game that actually generates some excitement and heads toward a quick conclusion. (A "long" game of Rumpel Ritter is 15 minutes... and the only way that happens is if more than one player is in the running to win the game.)
My seven year old will still play this... but it was really popular with him when he was 3.5 to 4 years old. My younger son is just starting with this one & likes playing it.
I'm ashamed to say my child's first board games were CandyLand and Chutes and Ladders. I knew at the time that they were horrible games but I bought them anyway because I thought they were the only games out there for really little kids. That was before I'd discovered Boardgamegeek!
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