Sometimes it can be hard to find a decent game for kids in that 5 year age range. 

They’re too young to play some of the bigger games for kids 8 and up, yet too old to want to play the younger, more toddler geared games. 

Luckily there are games out there like Farmini that hits the sweet spot for kids ages 5 and up! 

What is it? 

Farmini is an adorable, easy to learn tile placement game for 1-4 farmers looking to expand their farm. 

Inside the box there are 54 cards, 15 animal tokens, and 1 farmyard that’s actually the bottom half of the box itself!

Players will be attempting to expand their farm, cultivate cornfields, and adopt as many animals as possible to win!

How do you play?

To play, each player will take a farm card and set it in front of them. This will be the they will build off of throughout the game. 

You’ll place the four starting cards in the middle of the table face up, then shuffle the remaining cards to form the face-down draw deck.

Then just place all the animal tokens in the farmyard and you’re ready to go!

During the game, players will take turns one after another selecting a card from the center to use to grow their farm. 

If the card has a fence on it, you’ll use it to connect and build your fences around the farm. All fences must connect and all grassy pastures must touch other pastures. You cannot end a fence against a pasture. 

If the card has an animal on it you’ll select the same type of animal on the card from the farmyard and add it to any available pen on your farm. These are the brown circle spaces depicted on some cards. 

Once a card is selected, you’ll replace it with a card from the face-down draw pile. 

If the card that you flip has a wolf on it, the wolf frightens away the type of animal on his card that is not in a pen enclosed by a fence. All players will examine their farm to make sure that that type of animal is safe, if not, they’ll remove it from their farm and place it back in the farmyard. 

The game continues until there are no more cards in the draw pile or in the center. Then the scores are tallied up thus: 

• Each animal token in your farm earns you 1 point. These animals do not need to be enclosed by a fence.
• Each cornfield enclosed by a fence earns you 1 point. Cornfields that are not enclosed, or those in enclosed pens with animals earn you 0 points. (Those animals are hungry and ate all your corn!)

The player with the most points wins!

What do we think?

I really enjoy this game for a variety of reasons. 

First off, it’s just adorable. The art is perfectly styled for kids to enjoy without being too toddler-ish. In a lot of ways it reminds me of app artwork that you might see in a Farmville style game on an iPhone or iPad. 

The game itself is really well done. It’s simple and easy to teach, but there is a nice amount of strategy required for younger kids so that they can earn points with their farm. 

Our son who is nearly five himself, first tried to collect all the animals he could and didn’t worry too much about enclosing his pens. However, that didn’t work because the wolves scared them all away and he ended without many points. 

Then he over corrected and focused too closely on fences and corn. Each game he was able to learn a little bit more about what worked and what didn’t to improve the next game.

This is definitely not just a game for younger kids. Our daughter, now seven, really caught on and enjoys the game and the challenge it provides too. Not only that, but Adam and I really enjoy playing it too. Whenever a game geared towards kids can be fun for us as adults to play too it’s a major bonus! No one likes having to slog through a rough game just because your kids like it. 

I love that everything fits inside the small box. Any way we can save on shelf space is a huge bonus and this petite size makes Farmini a great game to throw in your purse or diaper bag to play when you’re on the go or traveling somewhere new!

Summary

Farmini is a great game to get for your kids who love to play games are are looking for one that feels less like a toddler game. Too often kids in the 5+ age range can get stuck in game rut while they’ve aged out of some of their toddler games yet are still too young for those older games. 

Farmini is a great mix of game and art design that entices kids in this age range while still challenging them mechanics wise. Players have to focus and think critically in order to score points and will learn with each game how to improve their strategy for the next. 

The game plays quickly in about 10 to 15 minutes and comes in the wonderfully simple box so it can be easily taken with you when traveling.

If you’ve got a child in the 5-8 age range, Farmini is definitely worth checking out!
If you’d like to get your own copy of Farmini click HERE!

Want to see more like this? Check out these posts!
3 Unique Memory Games for Kids
Dragon’s Breath Review
Tips for Gaming with Toddlers

Thank you so much to our friends at IELLO and LOKI for providing us a copy of Farmini to review. As always, our reviews and opinions are our own.

Game Info:
Title: Farmini
Ages: 5+
Price: $11.99
Designer: Marie & Wilfried Fort
Artist: Anne Pätzke
Publisher: LOKI
Published: 2018

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