Yesterday afternoon, my family found ourselves on the wrong side of a snake and alligator infested river. There was no bridge, but there were stumps sticking up out of the water. Unfortunately, they were too far apart to attempt jumping, but we had some planks of various lengths that we could use to connect the stumps and cross, if we could just figure out how…

ThinkFun River Crossing is one of our favorite games. Solving the puzzles is great for encouraging strategic thinking, planning ahead and thinking visually, but who cares about all that?  We like it becasue it’s super fun.
The game comes with a deck of 40 puzzle cards, from easy to expert. You lay the card on its platform and place the stumps and planks where indicated.

The hiker moves by walking along a plank to get to a stump. He can’t jump; when he reaches a gap, he has to go back, pick up a plank and move it. This is made easy by the magnet in his boots.

The hiker keeps moving planks around until he reaches the other side of the river.

Hurray! He made it!

Don’t look so smug, little plastic hiker-man.  That was an easy one. This one was much harder:

Sometimes the hiker has to abandon a plank somewhere and hope that he will be able to pick it up later. Sometimes, he has to make several moves just to get a plank out of his way. If you really get stuck trying to help him cross, check the booklet for the answer:

You just need to solve the code first.
So far, we have only broken down and used the answer booklet once. The cards are plenty challenging, but we prefer to try to solve them on our own, even if we have to stop and start over multiple times.  Eventually we get our little man to safety.
Added bonus: when we are done playing all the pieces go in (and stay in) a drawstring storage bag until next time.

ThinkFun River Crossing is recommended for ages 8 and up and sells for about $15. Once you have worked through all 40 puzzle cards, you can get new challenges in River Crossing 2
(about $6). I think Santa might be bringing that one to us this year.
There is also a ThinkFun River Crossing Jr. for children aged 6 – 8.

Disclaimer: This was not a sponsored review. No one sent me anything. No one asked me my opinion. We just really like this game and thought you might too. However, I am using Amazon affiliate links so if you purchase from my links I get a small commission.