The OKIDO Which Way game is an exciting adventure game that teaches coding skills to children. Some parents with younger children might have heard of the OKIDO show on CBeebies, but if you haven’t heard about it, here’s a little bit of history about them. OKIDO started off from a children’s Arts & Science magazine and was later adapted into a preschool TV comedy adventure series that brings together creativity with science. It is very educational.
Now they have launched a simple yet fun STEM game for children aged four to eight years old. Both of my children are too old for this but Ms C had fun trialling it! What I love about this game is that it teaches young children to think and prepares them the fundamental principles of programming. The whole game is simplicity, interactivity and fun illustrations.
This game comes in a sturdy box with handle which is great for storage or transport. Inside the box, it comes with one huge magnetic gameboard, 16 magnetic tiles, magic car, mission wheel, screwdriver, four replacement batteries and instructions. Please be careful and store the replacement batteries out of reach of young children.
The gameboard is really large and folds in half. I took it out and placed it on my American fridge door with help from some magnetic bars so that it would flatten out. After a day, the gameboard is still slightly bent in the middle. It is not ideal but we still managed to use it without any problems. On this lovely gameboard, there are a few pieces of track drawn on the board and a few cute characters illustrated at their base.
On the mission wheel (or spinner), there are three levels of difficulty. The illustrations provides good explanations and by looking at it, children will understand what they should do.
As for the magic car, it already have the batteries inside but you will need to open the lid using the screwdriver that was provided to remove the plastic cover on the batteries itself. I do find the quality of the car is not that great so do handle with care to avoid dropping it. Also, sometimes the rubber tires comes off the wheels. It is easy to put back on though.
The game is very easy to follow and there is an instruction booklet which provides you a few simple puzzles and a scoreboard to keep track of your games. As there is only one page of scoreboard provided, it is best for you to use blank paper to track your game instead.
This game can be played with only one player and up to four. There are only four easy steps to do. First, spin the wheel and pick your mission. There are three levels of difficulty as mentioned earlier on the mission wheel and the characters’ images are shown. Now the children need to work out the route by using their fingers before attempting to replicate it placing the magnetic tiles on the board. Lastly, place your magic car on the path and see how it reaches all the destinations and win the game! As you can see, this is such an easy game yet it teaches children the basics of coding and scientific experiment.
The magic car is a line following robot that tracks the lines well by using the sensors underneath. Ms C said that the magic car is just like a ladybird as ladybirds will follow a line if you draw a black line on paper!
The magic car sometime does get confused and keeps going around and around. It does prompt the child to troubleshoot to work out why and eventually get the car follow the line. It is fun and a great achievement for a child when the magic car makes it through to the final destination!
We both enjoy this game and it’s definitely a great way to get children into coding and programming through play. The game only costs £30 which is good value as it that offers fun and educational benefits. The price also reflects the quality of the game. It is available to buy from OKIDO shop.
Disclosure: We received the sample for the purposes of writing this review, however, all thoughts and opinions remain our own.