Shark Mania Board Game

This game was a big hit. Gave it to my 5 year old daughter for Christmas. Seven months later and it's still her favorite most played game. In fact all the neighbor hood kids love playing it. They were all sitting around the table jumping up and down trying to get there pirate to the end while collecting gold and trying not let their pirate get eaten by the shark!!! Even our 18 year old neighbor was totally getting into it!!! My husband I just sat back and took pics. Love this game. I can't wait to buy it for my niece when she gets a little older. (She's only two now). My daughter was four when we bough it and she was able to play it just fine.

My kids LOVE this game! There are of course directions to the game and when played that way it is a lot of fun. However, my youngest who is 4 1/2 doesn't exactly understand the rules and so we play a variation and it is still fun. It is fast paced and that engages them a lot and makes them so excited when they play! I love that it's not so overly competitive that the kids are fighting when they play it! I would highly recommend it as a family game to a family with kids who are preschool to elementary school age.

The string stopped extending the full length of the game board on the second game. My daughter was so excited to play and after the long set-up process, it was a shame that she never really got a chance.

We were hesitant about buying this game based on some of the reviews. Some people said that there wasn't enough time to get through game and game without the shark eating you and collecting the treasure. However, there were three of us playing and one was a 5 year old and we were always able to get completely through the game without time running out and my son is SLOW. We did have to "persuade him to go faster" quite often but we made it and with coins. We all had a good time and it is funny how you can forget to grab the coins when you are rushing. It makes you take chances and think fast. We all had fun and play it quite often. I highly recommend it to all. My only suggestion is to make sure that you pull the string all the way out or time will run out too early.

This is such a fun game. My daughter is a huge shark fan and so I was thrilled when I found this for her. Her face just lit right up when she saw it and once we assembled it she had a blast playing. It's well constructed and easy for even young children to play. The shark has a really cute biting action and pops up when you least expect it. This is a great game to occupy the kids on a rainy day or any day really. It's a good way to get them unglued from the television or video games for awhile.

Kids love this fast paced game. Maybe I'm too old, but I found it to be somewhat complex and we ended up playing our own modified version. Other drawback is that upon arrival, the treasure chest did not work correctly, (I BELIEVE it should funtion to stop the shark from moving until all the pieces are in place and ready to begin the game)....so each time we set up, someone would have to hold down the string until ready to begin. Also just a little tricky to get the planks all in place to play, which can make for some frustrated kids (and mom). All in all, a game the kids enjoyed but pretty quickly forgot about. A year later and the shark portion was completely busted, making the game inoperable.

A game you might want to play once or twice, then it finds itself on the shelf. Game moves fast for a real small child, and frankly is funny the first time, but not too fun after.

This purchase was a gift for my nephew on his fourth birthday. He was begging for anything and everything related to sharks and there really aren't many games out there for his age. He loved this game and I was very pleased with how much he has played with it since receiving it. I was told that he didn't quite grasp the concept of the game immediately but after a few plays he was loving it!