About.com Rating



Who Shook Hook is a great turn-taking and coordination game from Wonder Forge recommended for preschool kids ages 4 and up, that features the popular characters Jake, Izzy, Cubbie, Scully, and Captain Hook from the Jake and the Neverland Pirates television show that airs on the Disney and Disney Junior Channel.

Includes

-Island themed game board

-Character pawns with removable bases that include Jake, Izzy, Cubbie and Scully

-Sleeping Captain Hook character figure

-Various colored treasures (red, blue, green, yellow) such as barrels, money bags, tiki totem poles, and treasure chests

-Leaf tweezers, shovel, fishing pole, sword

-2 palm trees with removable tops that attach to the game board

-Hammock with several rubber bands that attach to the palm trees

-Number spinner

How to Play

The goal of this game is to maneuver your game piece around the board, removing treasures from Captain's Hook hammock, using one of the various tools (tweezers, shovels, fishing pole, or sword) trying not to wake him up, by tipping over the hammock. If you knock Captain Hook off the hammock and wake him up, you lose. If there are more than 2 players, the player with the most treasures wins.

There is no official start on the game board, and you can maneuver the board clockwise, or counter-clockwise. After spinning the spinner, it will determine how many spaces the character moves. Sometimes a character may land on a picture of one of the tools, other times, they may land on a colored space and need to remove the treasure with the corresponding color.

You can also land on a specific treasure spot and remove that treasure with any tool the player chooses.

Right out of the box, after I attached the palm tree's my son decided to pull on 1 and bent the board game a little bit, slightly warping it in the process. In general, the tweezers and fishing pole tended to be my preferred choices for more easily removing treasures, but over time and repeated play time, children will learn and remember how to more successfully plan their attack on Captain Hook. For younger kids, or children who had some difficulty following the instructions, many times we just played with the pieces, removing them from the hammock. I did find that given that the hammock is situated right in the middle of the game board, for impulsive kids who move quickly, once their pawn ends up on the opposite side of the board, they often knocked the pieces off the hammock just trying to move the character, which was frustrating for them, but not enough to stop them from wanting to play this game over and over again.

This is a fun game, perfect for kids in the 4-6 year old age range, especially kids who are in love with the Jake and the Neverlands Pirate television show. Children in this age range are working on taking turns with peers, learning about numbers to sequence the moves of their pawn, and color matching, all of which are embedded in this game. Who Shook Hook also adds the elements of hand-eye coordination, memory, impulse control and strategy.



Disclosure: Review samples were provided by the manufacturer. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.